Venezuela's Government Blocks Access To Wikipedia (haaretz.com) 208
Haaretz (with contributions from Reuters and the Associated Press) reports:
According to NetBlocks, a digital rights group that tracks restrictions to the internet, as of 12 January, Venezuela largest telecommunications provider CANTV has prevented access to Wikipedia in all languages. The internet observatory told Haaretz the ban was discovered by attempting "to access Wikipedia and other services 60,000 times from 150 different points in the country using multiple providers."
Roughly 16 million people have access to the internet in the South American country ravaged by poverty and now facing a political crisis as leader Nicolas Maduro attempts to cling to power following a highly contested re-election last year. Wikipedia receives on average 60 million views from the country every month.
According to NetBlocks, the ban was likely imposed after a Wikipedia article listed newly-appointed National Assembly president Juan Guaidà as âoepresident number 51 of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,â ousting Maduro from his presidential status on Wikipedia... Alp Toker, the head of NetBlocks, explained to Haaretz that the block followed a string of controversial edits on the Spanish-language article for Guaido as well as other related articles.
Long-time Slashdot reader williamyf identifies himself as "a Venezuelan in Venezuela." He reports that "The method used seems to be to intercept the SSL handshake and not a simple DNS block," adding "the situation is developing."
In May of last year the government declared a "state of emergency" that authorized the government to police the internet and filter content, rights activists reported Monday. They added that now Venezuela's new leaders plan to introduce legislation requiring messaging service providers to censor content, and implementing other so-called "content security" measures.
Roughly 16 million people have access to the internet in the South American country ravaged by poverty and now facing a political crisis as leader Nicolas Maduro attempts to cling to power following a highly contested re-election last year. Wikipedia receives on average 60 million views from the country every month.
According to NetBlocks, the ban was likely imposed after a Wikipedia article listed newly-appointed National Assembly president Juan Guaidà as âoepresident number 51 of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,â ousting Maduro from his presidential status on Wikipedia... Alp Toker, the head of NetBlocks, explained to Haaretz that the block followed a string of controversial edits on the Spanish-language article for Guaido as well as other related articles.
Long-time Slashdot reader williamyf identifies himself as "a Venezuelan in Venezuela." He reports that "The method used seems to be to intercept the SSL handshake and not a simple DNS block," adding "the situation is developing."
In May of last year the government declared a "state of emergency" that authorized the government to police the internet and filter content, rights activists reported Monday. They added that now Venezuela's new leaders plan to introduce legislation requiring messaging service providers to censor content, and implementing other so-called "content security" measures.
A Communist constitution (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A Communist constitution (Score:5, Informative)
[A Communist constitution] always goes full censorship.
And fascists don't? [wikipedia.org]
Hyper-sensitive extremist tyrants embrace censorship of anything that puts them in a bad light, no matter what side they are on the political spectrum.
Mussolini was the head of the Socialist party (Score:5, Interesting)
Mussolini was at one time the head of the Socialist party in Italy, and was a follower of Georges Sorel. So pointing to Mussolini and pretending he was somehow the opposite of socialist or communist is a bit bizarre. That's kinda like:
Republicans do this ...
And Reaganites don't?!
Fascism is what happens when socialist meets reality. Socialism is a fiction book has an imaginary race of people with no instinct for self-preservation or self-interest. Real people try to take care of themselves and their families, so fascism is required to force socialism on them.
Re:Mussolini was the head of the Socialist party (Score:5, Informative)
So pointing to Mussolini and pretending he was somehow the opposite of socialist or communist is a bit bizarre.
Communism and Fascism are not opposites. They are almost the same thing. Totalitarianism is totalitarianism. The main difference between extreme left and extreme right is how they justify their policies. The left says is is for "the good of the people" while the right says it is for "the good of the country". But that doesn't make much difference to the people starving in the death camps.
Re: (Score:2)
Communism and Fascism are not opposites. They are almost the same thing. Totalitarianism is totalitarianism. The main difference between extreme left and extreme right is how they justify their policies. The left says is is for "the good of the people" while the right says it is for "the good of the country". But that doesn't make much difference to the people starving in the death camps.
ShanghaiBill, I seldom agree with you, but now and then I find your comments to be insightful and well-considered. Nevertheless, I'm at a loss here.
You made an excellent point in another post that totalitarianism is not the same as authoritarianism. If I interpret your thesis correctly, you associate the former with communism and the latter with fascism. Fair enough. But that means they are not the same thing.
The only similarity I find is that both require (impose?) a surrender of the individual to some per
Re: (Score:3)
Socialism is about the masses banding together to help each other, fascism is about the masses banding together to help the guy at the top. The historical fascist governments were highly pro-industry and pro-capitalism, and they supported industrial leaders. Historical socialist governments usually distrusted industrial leaders and capitalism. They have different words for them because they were very different things. Highly left wing leaning vs high right wing leaning, with a mix of authoritarianism not
Re: (Score:3)
All that people can really agree on is that fascists are bad and that it's probably a good idea to call your opponents fascist or insinuate that they have fascist tendencies. It seems like no one adopts the name as part of their political part
Re:Mussolini was the head of the Socialist party (Score:5, Informative)
Mussolini was at one time the head of the Socialist party in Italy, and was a follower of Georges Sorel.
He was a leader in (not the head of) the Italian Socialist Party, but he was expelled [wikipedia.org] when he advocated for military involvement in WWI, contrary to the Party's position of neutrality. He went on to create the National Fascist Party and advocate for totalitarian nationalism.
As for Georges Sorel [wikipedia.org] -- he began as a Marxist and turned into something all his own, He abandoned socialism in 1910 and declared it was "dead" in 1914. He began to support nationalistic ideas in 1909. Oh, and he was an apologist for violence in the service of political causes.
So pointing to Mussolini and pretending he was somehow the opposite of socialist or communist is a bit bizarre.
Mussolini turned himself into the opposite of a socialist/communist. I'm not saying bad things haven't been done in the name of socialism, communism, or any other political ideology (left or right). I'm just saying Mussolini may have started as a socialist in name, but he turned into something much differet.
Fascism is what happens when socialist meets reality. Socialism is a fiction book has an imaginary race of people with no instinct for self-preservation or self-interest. Real people try to take care of themselves and their families, so fascism is required to force socialism on them.
Fascism [wikipedia.org] is considered to be on the far right of the left-right political spectrum. Fascists consider socialists and marxists to be their enemies. Fascism doesn't force socialism on people. Fascism forces fascism on people.
Re: (Score:2)
Given what most people today think they know about Fascism, this bare recital of facts is a mystery story. How can a movement which epitomizes the extreme right be so strongly rooted in the extreme left? What was going on in the minds of dedicated socialist militants to turn them into equally dedicated Fascist militants? The link above answers the story, but socialists that read it won't like it.
THE DOCTRINE OF FASCISM-BENITO MUSSOLINI (1932)
Anti-individualisti
Re: (Score:2)
Re:A Communist constitution (Score:5, Insightful)
Fascist is not the opposite of Communist, and yet you seem to think it is.
Both are totalitarian regimes, arguable of a socialist structure (yes, the NAZIs held many socialist concepts strongly, including eradication of 'oppressors')
Classical Liberals/Libertarians are probably the closest to the opposite, although the terms have been stolen these days by socialists, most likely trying to play wolf-in-sheeps-clothing.
Re: (Score:2)
Fascist is not the opposite of Communist, and yet you seem to think it is.
I'm not the only one. [wikipedia.org]
Just because extreme ends of the political spectrum have some similarity in their priority of their ideological interests over those of the individual does not make them identical. Opposite? Perhaps not. But not the same.
Both are totalitarian regimes, arguable of a socialist structure (yes, the NAZIs held many socialist concepts strongly, including eradication of 'oppressors')
I see that you like to define your enemies in your own terms. Whatever. Nazis are not socialists, despite what their name implies. Socialism embraces a precept of universal brotherhood. Nazis most certainly do not.
Classical Liberals/Libertarians are probably the closest to the opposite, although the terms have been stolen these days by socialists, most likely trying to play wolf-in-sheeps-clothing.
Liberals are centre-left to moderate-left. IMHO liberta
Re: (Score:2)
Fascist is not the opposite of Communist, and yet you seem to think it is.
Both are totalitarian regimes, arguable of a socialist structure (yes, the NAZIs held many socialist concepts strongly, including eradication of 'oppressors')
Classical Liberals/Libertarians are probably the closest to the opposite, although the terms have been stolen these days by socialists, most likely trying to play wolf-in-sheeps-clothing.
Actually you're wrong.
The first target of all successful fascism was the Communists. In Germany, in Italy and in Spain, first target of any Fascist party was the elimination of the Communists and Bolsheviks.
Also Nazi is a proper noun, not an acronym. Capitalising it is also wrong.
Now Fascism is considered far right because it's ultra-nationalistic and tends to enforce very conservative social views such as traditional gender roles (a woman's job is to raise children, men are to work and fight), ag
Re:A Communist constitution (Score:5, Insightful)
Communism is a form of authoritarianism
Communism is a form of totalitarianism.
Authoritarians ban any challenge to their authority, but otherwise people are mostly free to do what they want.
Totalitarians attempt to control every aspect of life.
Stalin was totalitarian. Putin is authoritarian.
Mao was totalitarian. Xi is authoritarian.
Re: (Score:2)
Authoritarians ban any challenge to their authority, but otherwise people are mostly free to do what they want. Totalitarians attempt to control every aspect of life. Stalin was totalitarian. Putin is authoritarian. Mao was totalitarian. Xi is authoritarian.
That's trying to make a principal difference between a short leash and a long leash. All authoritarians think their authority exceeds your personal liberty, it's just a matter of how far you can go before they'll yank your chain. The way Xi treats the Falun Gong or Uyghurs (Muslims) is not really much better than Stalin's "religion is opium for the masses" that he got from Karl Marx. Both Putin and Xi is pushing an anti-LBGT agenda both to assert their authority and to appeal to the people as the gatekeeper
Re: (Score:2)
Trump is totalitarian.
No, he's authoritarian. [vox.com]
Re: (Score:2)
A totalitarian justifies everything by pointing to the rulebook.
An authoritarian thinks he is the rulebook.
Re: (Score:3)
Any authoritarian regime can only survive with censorship. One way or another. Smarter regimes simply replace it with spewing so much bullshit that it's no longer possible to distinguish between reality and fake news.
Re: (Score:2)
Why would one think the Punch was smart? Because he outsmarts Judy?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Besides propaganda, a good starting point on the truthfulness of Wikipedia would be 10 Most Notorious Wikipedia Editing Scandals [searchenginepeople.com], outdated, bust still good.
Re: (Score:2)
We keep thinking 'oh no we got it right *this* *time*'. No you have not. Power corrupts almost in all cases.
Here's a handy flowchart [imgur.com].
Re: (Score:2)
David Tennant, Scottish deity?
Re: (Score:2)
tenants = people who rent property. /|\ the word you were probably looking for, thicko.
Tennents = a kind of tramp juice, popular in Scotland
tenets = core beliefs, fundamental principles.
You forgot:
ten ants - a posse of insects of the Formiciae family who have been separated from their colony.
Enemy of the People (Score:2, Informative)
That's how we do it in the Soviet USSA.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and... [vox.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No we don't.
Wikipedia isn't "the media". And we haven't banned it here.
We haven't banned "the media" either, nor have we banned Twitter.
Over the last hundred-or-so years, almost all federal; state; and local laws banning speech have been knocked down or weakened. We've wiped out laws against pornography, we've made it easy to attack establishment religion (especially Christianity), and we've made it easy to support anti-establishment political movements of all kinds. House Unamerican Activities Committee
Re: (Score:1)
Saying "Maduro's attempt to block Wikipedia in Venezuela" seems to mean you are ready to jump to any unsubstantiated conclusion that's part of the ongoing narrative western governments and media are trying to push.
And the OP didn't mention censorship.
Re: (Score:2)
0 ?
Ok. Though I haven't seen any substantiated news on whether this is really a thing, or whether Maduro is involved in some way.
But I was hoping the ongoing narrative pushed by most western governments and by most western media, could be addressed.
Well one more thing (Score:1, Insightful)
That everyone who shouts "Socialism is a great idea", has to ignore.
Re: Well one more thing (Score:2, Insightful)
Why? It's everybody who whinges about "Socialism" and "Venezuela" who is ignoring the reality of the country being an oppressive and exploitative tyranny just like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Russia, China, and Trumplandia.
Besides, they're just doing what has been done for centuries, blocking stuff they don't like. Nothing you don't do six times before breakfast.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
It's everybody who whinges about "Socialism" and "Venezuela" who is ignoring the reality of the country being an oppressive and exploitative tyranny just like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Russia, China
You're contrasting Russia and China with socialist countries?
Egypt too, the government owns the large companies and means of production.
Because real human beings seek to take care of themselves and their families, because they don't like to have the fruits of their labor taken from them, socialism requ
Re: (Score:2)
Spending money on things I don't care about, or curtailing capitalism in any way = socialism
Well then by your definition, every country in the world is socialist.
Re: (Score:2)
Nearly every country in the world incorporates some socialism into their society
"Nearly?" I would say they all do.
But your implication is that simply embracing some aspects of socialism does not make a country socialist. And I agree. My previous post went too far on that point.
Thanks for the improvement.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, Turkey is a capitalist country and they blocked Wikipedia too.
Capitalist countries can be repressive.
Socialist countries have to be repressive.'
If they aren't, it is only a matter of time until grandma starts growing tomatoes in her backyard and selling them to her neighbors, and then the whole system comes crashing down.
Re: (Score:3)
Socialist countries have to be repressive.'
A lot of countries with socialist government weren't and aren't. Tell that to Salvador Allende [wikipedia.org] or Evo Morales [wikipedia.org] or Lula [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:2)
Funny how you confuse a government with an economic system. This is an action that Dictators do, the government happens to be socialism. Similarly, they also happen to be a Spanish speaking culture, are you going to blame ALL Spanish speaking cultures for this action by a dictator?
Because I got news you for there are a LOT of evil Dictators that claim to be running pure capitalism.
That is not even including the want to be dictators.
Re: (Score:2)
Because I got news you for there are a LOT of evil Dictators that claim to be running pure capitalism.
There is no such thing as "pure capitalism" under a dictatorship.
A free market that defines capitalism requires the ability to buy and sell products and services that would be antithetical to a dictatorship. Do you believe I could sell t-shirts that read "The king is an asshole!" under a dictatorship? Of course not. Would a dictatorship allow a private citizen to purchase a handgun for personal defense, hunting, or sport? That's unlikely, unless this person is somehow a trusted member of the ruling clas
It’s hard to have sympathy for deletionists (Score:1, Troll)
The internet treats censorship as damage (Score:5, Interesting)
This sounds like domain fronting [bamsoftware.com] would get around the block: Connect to a different site hosted behind the same load balancer, establish a TLS connection with the other site's domain name, then use the correct host header for the HTTP request inside the TLS connection. That's how Signal got around Russian attempts to censor them.
Re: (Score:3)
In Wikipedia's case, you can use any of several mirror sites:
https://en.wikipedi0.org [wikipedi0.org]
https://wikipediaproxy.org [wikipediaproxy.org]
https://www.wikiwand.com [wikiwand.com]
Anyway it's back up:
openssl s_client -connect en.wikipedia.org:443
CONNECTED(00000005)
depth=2 OU = GlobalSign Root CA - R3, O = GlobalSign, CN = GlobalSign
verify return:1
depth=1 C = BE, O = GlobalSign nv-sa, CN = GlobalSign Organization Validation CA - SHA256 - G2
verify return:1
depth=0 C = US, ST = California, L = San Francisco, O = "Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.", CN = *.wikipe
Re:The internet treats censorship as damage (Score:4, Informative)
And is a practice that first Google, then amazon and latter Cloudflare prohibited in their clouds.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.c... [bleepingcomputer.com]
Azure still permits a variant of this technique. Who knows for how long...
https://techlector.com/tor-pro... [techlector.com]
But yes, we are hard at work to detect these censorship instances, devise workarounds, and educate the people on how to use them.
That's a shame but (Score:2, Funny)
We really need to get back to bashing the USA.
It's back up (Score:5, Informative)
It was the Venezuelan government's attempt to quash a small edit war about who's the (legitimate) president, waged on the articles on Venezuela [wikipedia.org] and President of Venezuela [wikipedia.org]. AFAIK the blocking was implemented only by the state-owned ISP, which serves a large majority of domestic connections by virtue of being the only landline phone company.
Anyway seems they gave up on it, yesterday or early today:
openssl s_client -connect en.wikipedia.org:443
CONNECTED(00000005)
depth=2 OU = GlobalSign Root CA - R3, O = GlobalSign, CN = GlobalSign
verify return:1
depth=1 C = BE, O = GlobalSign nv-sa, CN = GlobalSign Organization Validation CA - SHA256 - G2
verify return:1
depth=0 C = US, ST = California, L = San Francisco, O = "Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.", CN = *.wikipedia.org
verify return:1
---
Certificate chain
0 s:C = US, ST = California, L = San Francisco, O = "Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.", CN = *.wikipedia.org
i:C = BE, O = GlobalSign nv-sa, CN = GlobalSign Organization Validation CA - SHA256 - G2
1 s:C = BE, O = GlobalSign nv-sa, CN = GlobalSign Organization Validation CA - SHA256 - G2
i:OU = GlobalSign Root CA - R3, O = GlobalSign, CN = GlobalSign
---
Server certificate
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
-----END CERTIFICATE-----
subject=C = US, ST = California, L = San Francisco, O = "Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.", CN = *.wikipedia.org
issuer=C = BE, O = GlobalSign nv-sa, CN = GlobalSign Organization Validation CA - SHA256 - G2
--- .... ....
No client certificate CA names sent
Peer signing digest: SHA512
Peer signature type: ECDSA
Server Temp Key: X25519, 253 bits
---
SSL handshake has read 3515 bytes and written 403 bytes
Verification: OK
---
New, TLSv1.2, Cipher is ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305
Server public key is 256 bit
Secure Renegotiation IS supported
Compression: NONE
Expansion: NONE
No ALPN negotiated
SSL-Session:
Protocol : TLSv1.2
Cipher : ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305
Session-ID:
Session-ID-ctx:
Master-Key:
PSK identity: None
PSK identity hint: None
SRP username: None
Start Time: 1547943159
Timeout : 7200 (sec)
Verify return code: 0 (ok)
Extended master secret: yes
---
DONE
In case it happens to you, there's several mirror sites:
https://en.wikipedi0.org [wikipedi0.org]
https://wikipediaproxy.org [wikipediaproxy.org]
https://www.wikiwand.com [wikiwand.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Just to clarify:
If the blockage was done to CANTV, it extended to Movilnet, a cellphone carrier also owned by the state, with close to 40% of cellphone lines in the country.
Also the blockage extended to CANTV-Sat ISP, which is the only means of comunication of remote/rural areas. While this affects a small number of users, is worrysome because these users are less sophisticated and this is their only means of communication.
There are other areas were the blockage may extand, but those are the main ones.
jun 2018 (Score:3)
This started in jun 2018. Before that, the censorship was based in simple DNS manipulation, afterwards they implemented some form of deep packet inspection, which also attempts to block TOR (fixed by using obfuscated bridges).
Censorship has been going for a few years. It started with media sites, extended to porn sites, at some point they put pastebin because someone pasted a political message, and now this.
They did back down on pastebin and wikipedia (this is coming to slashdot way late).
Re: (Score:1)
She needs to be spanked for that.
Re: (Score:3)
You can't sodomize a cucumber
In Soviet Russia, cucumber sodomizes you!
Re: (Score:1)
Groups of people (and in fact individuals too) can do good and bad things. There are no "good guys" or "bad guys". Everyone is a bit of both, some more of one, some more of the other.
Re: Isn't Venezuela one of the good guys? (Score:1)
Wake up! A 5 second Google (fake news even) search will tell you the opposite is true. Despite that, our glorious Wikipedia will say that despite being banned, poor gun control is part of the increase in violent crimes since the 2012 ban, as if that makes any sense.
Re: (Score:2)
Wake up! A 5 second Google (fake news even) search will tell you the opposite is true. Despite that, our glorious Wikipedia will say that despite being banned, poor gun control is part of the increase in violent crimes since the 2012 ban, as if that makes any sense.
Is this the wikipedia article? [wikipedia.org] Because on balance, it indicates that the increase in violent crime is due primarily to robbery, mostly motivated by severe food shortages.
It is true that their gun-control initiative has not been successful: only a small fraction of all guns in the country have been destroyed, most from involuntary seizures. Venezuela is still swimming in guns, and the people are desperately hungry. Claiming the murder rate went up because of a gun ban is a specious argument.
Re: (Score:2)
Because on balance, it indicates that the increase in violent crime is due primarily to robbery
Venezuela has the 3rd highest homicide rate in the world [wikipedia.org]. 1st and 2nd are El Salvador and Honduras, USA is 90th.
Re: (Score:2)
Didn't both of those countries have a sharp drop in gun crime when they too passed firearms bans recently?
No, of course not. Neither did Venezuela.
Do you really believe that criminals in a violent country, or their potential victims, are going to obey a "ban"?
Re: (Score:2)
In modern society how could a government ban guns without also banning the information to build them?
I suspect a lot of firearm enthusiasts here have heard of the Model 1911 pistol. They would also know why it is called that. It's because the design was adopted by the US Army in the year 1911. Same with the Model 1897 shotgun and Model 1917 revolver. And for machineguns with model numbers 1917, 1918, 1919, and 1928. This is technology that is over 100 years old or soon will be. These were weapons that
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No, I'm saying that to disarm the people means both restricting movement, restricting communication, restricting the private ownership of the means of production, and that people must be constantly in fear of the government searching their homes, businesses, and their persons.
It's not a matter of which is easier, producing weapons or smuggling them in, only that to disarm the people means denying them of all the freedoms we currently enjoy in the USA.
Re: (Score:2)
Building arms en masse, especially the old ones, requires massive resources not the least of which is steel and energy. When you're poor and starving, you're not going to waste your energy on building a gun. Hence why governments come for your guns first and then let you starve - people that aren't starving aren't motivated to keep their guns starving people aren't motivated to get their guns.
Re: (Score:2)
Building arms en masse, especially the old ones, requires massive resources not the least of which is steel and energy.
I can agree to that, if perhaps only in part.
Here's where I disagree, I mention those 100 year old weapons as an example of how far back in technology people would have to be driven to deny them the ability to make any kind of firearm we'd recognize as "modern". The Model 1911 has undergone a number of revisions since it came out, improving comfort, safety, accuracy, durability, and so on. For the most part it's largely unchanged and could be mass produced with anyone that has access to 120 year old techn
Re: (Score:2)
That's quite good. I think I am going to steal it.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We are at a point where there is simply no excuse to be a Socialist.
At this point there's no excuse to NOT be a socialist. Just look at what happened in Sweden, Norway and Denmark.
Re: (Score:1)
Sweden, Norway and Denmark aren't socialist. The only reason they amassed the wealth to experiment with some of their social programs is due to their capitalist past and abundance of natural resources for export, and those experiments are quickly failing.
Re:Socialism, falsified (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Those countries aren't socialist though
Venezuella is also not socialist. They don't have a centralized planned economy. They instead have a capitalist system with a weak central government that uses income from export to maintain handouts.
Re: (Score:1)
Exactly, its a failed oil-opolist economy run by a cabal. Hardly socialism by any real measure, but they had some socialist literature/propaganda a couple decades back and Fox News types never update their tiny mainframes.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Venzuela's problems began when the government started taking over the country's profitable industries. They have massive petroleum resources yet their oil companies collapsed when the state took them over. That's socialism in action.
Re: Uneducated Republican refuses to be educated, (Score:1)
None of those things are socialism. Private capitalist companies being contracted by the government to build things and provide services is different from the government becoming the means of production.
Re:Socialism, falsified (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but you don't seem to know what you're talking about. The government took over the economy and the current result is not only predicable, it was predicted by those opposed to socialism [theguardian.com], i.e. "For more than a decade people opposed to the government of Venezuela have argued that its economy would implode." was written in 2013.
Those in favor of socialism went on and on about how wonderful Venezuelan socialism was [libertynewsdaily.com] for people.
A "weak central government" doesn't nationalize huge parts of the economy, including all the most essential industries, like Venezuela had. That's (coincidentally, I'm sure...) when those industries then fell apart and stopped being able to produce nearly as much. A "weak central government" doesn't set wage and price controls with rationing and trying to make the government the sole provider for food.
All the attempts at having the government run the economy have ended the same way. It's not something which is even controversial among economists anymore. It's been proven by repeated experiment.
Re: (Score:2)
Just nationalizing stuff is not enough. For example, Norway government owns (most of) Statoil but this doesn't make their economy planned. The prices in Norway are set by the free market and the gov
Re: (Score:1)
"Venezuela is NOT socialistic in the classic economic sense - they don't have a Soviet-style planned economy where the government allocates all the resources and controls the production."
That is EXACTLY what the Venezuelan gov't has done for the past 20 years. You are either ignorant of history or flat out lying.
Re: (Score:3)
I agree with your description of Norway. You're misinformed about Venezuela. They've nationalized at least oil, steel, aluminum, cement, gold, iron, farming, transportation, electricity, food production, banking, paper and the media. By nationalized, I mean that the government publicly announced their nationalization and directly controls how the groups involved act, rather than private owners.
From a story which is 5 years old [go.com], the number of private companies in Venezuela was 14K in 1998. In 2011 it was 9K.
Re:Socialism, falsified (Score:5, Insightful)
They instead have a capitalist system
I suppose it's all privately owned right up until the government decides to nationalize it. [reuters.com]
Re: (Score:2)
So does this mean that Venezuela has proven capitalism to be bankrupt?
Re: (Score:1)
The majority of property in the USSR was privately owned; are you claiming the USSR was a capitalist country?
In Venezuela, the government has either nationalized or heavily regulated most industries. Food, necessities like toilet paper, education, housing, land ownership, clothing... Almost all aspects of the economy are controlled by the government.
Trying to pretend that a non-nationalized store that can only buy from government approved vendors, at government approved wholesale prices, and can only sell
Re: (Score:2)
The majority of property in the USSR was privately owned
This is incorrect (I lived in the USSR, btw). People did not own real estate (ANY real estate), all the enterprises were also state-owned. The only private property was personal. By my classification the USSR had been truly socialistic.
In Venezuela, the government has either nationalized or heavily regulated most industries. Food, necessities like toilet paper, education, housing, land ownership, clothing... Almost all aspects of the economy are controlled by the government.
They are not. Food in Venezuela is produced by private farmers and most of the toilet paper is imported (although local production is picking up). The problem is the mismanagement of the currency by the government that basically makes any productive activity impossible.
As f
Re: (Score:2)
There are estimates that about three million people have fled the country [theguardian.com] because of how bad it is there. That's closing in on ab
Re: (Score:3)
Considering how badly the government has screwed up the parts that it nationalized [bloomberg.com] perhaps the small bits of private enterprise (and black markets) are probably all that's keeping it afloat.
Or maybe: "Even the small remaining amount of capitalistic imperialism is keeping Venezuela from restructuring its economy". This is actually true, the government can't set prices for individual goods because people will immediately exploit it. Not unprecedented, btw, it happened before in Berlin just before the Wall.
You would have to explain why countries like Vietnam and China that instituted capitalist reforms to move away from their even more socialistic policies have seem massive growth instead of downward collapse
Because capitalistic economy tempered with socialistic policies actually works much better than pure dog-eat-dog capitalism?
No, thats not what socialism is. (Score:1)
You are wrong, socialist is not the opposite of capitalist, not by far.
communism is the (closest) opposite of capitalism
at least in their pure forms:
Communism is there the state takes control of most things, and then distributed work and rewards as it seems best to run an economy - ie: a full state run economy.
Capitalism is where the government releases control of most things to private enterprise, and private capital/equity becomes the controlling factor running the economy.
Socialism is a VERY different be
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
communism is the (closest) opposite of capitalism
No. You're inventing your own definitions. "Communism" as defined by Marx is basically an utopia that is not achievable right now. What you're thinking about is a planned economy which _is_ the opposite of capitalism. Historically planned economy was called "socialism" but that's a misnomer.
Socialism is a VERY different beast, Socialism is a system where the state takes capital from people who are judged to have too advantaged, and given by those who are judged to be disadvantaged. Socialism is by definition unstable, as the resources it takes from do not last.... It is the social equivalent of everything people are turning away from these days - consumptive behavior.
Incorrect again. Socialism as practiced in successful countries results in disadvantaged people becoming productive members, thus INCREASING the total amount of capital.
Meanwhile, true unconstrained capitalism results
Re: (Score:2)
You have never been to any of those countries, have you.
If you had been, and met their people, you would understand that they are very VERY far from socialist countries.
But no, you prefer to be ignorant of facts in support of your cause, I suspect.
Re: (Score:3)
You somehow think that "socialism" means "everything bad" (up to and including earthquakes). It's not.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Bernie is an idiot, or maybe he just knows idiots like you will take his word on things. Those countries are capitalist with a few more socialist programs than the US. This is also why their tax rate is approaching 80%. They are quickly turning into the same shithole as Venezuela, and every other country that has ever embraced socialism before them. Fuck socialism.
Denmark has some news for you (Score:2)
There is something Denmark would like you to know:
https://www.thelocal.dk/201511... [thelocal.dk]
Forbes explains it further:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/j... [forbes.com]
Re: (Score:2)
From ... socialism? Right?
Re: (Score:2)
Not that it has anything to do with the current discussion, but just so you know: Sweden avoided invasion by the Nazis and managed to rescue a fair number of their intended victims in the bargain.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Socialism, falsified (Score:5, Insightful)
You can understand why a poor country's people see all this oil money and demand it gets spent on the people now. A clever government would spend it on the people later.
When socialism works the capitalist side of the economy is also healthy, so we seem to forget that there is a socialist underpinning that enables that.
Re: (Score:1)
If you can't tell Norway and France apart, perhaps you need to stop being so obsessed with other people's anal sex, and learn a little about Europe.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Argentina Grants Access to NAZI Refugees... (Score:1)
As I said before, people keep saying that Slashdot does finally delete posts. If that's the case, why not simply have a script that catches this swastika stuff. There are easily regex parts of it that no legitimate user would ever use. Can code it in 50 seconds.
As far as I know just having the Swastika in ASCII like this on so many posts now could make Slashdot considered illegal in Germany as per the "Wolfenstein" rule.