Amid Chaos Venezuelans Struggle To Find The Truth, Online (npr.org) 260
In Venezuela, where media is controlled by the government, figuring out what is truth, rumor or propaganda has always been difficult. NPR reports: In recent days it's gotten even more confusing. President Nicolas Maduro has refused to cede power to the opposition party. There have been widespread protests and looting -- and the rumor mill has been churning on social media. But many Venezuelans have found a way to use social media in their favor.
Javier Rojo owns a pharmacy in the capital city of Caracas. As the chaos started, he gave his workers the day off, went home and turned on the TV -- only to find nothing was being reported. "Independent media has been gradually attacked or shut down over time," says professor Gregory Weeks, who teaches Latin American politics at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. "So that in general social media becomes the means by which you learn what's going on, on an ongoing basis."
Back at his house, Rojo says he started getting messages on WhatsApp like this one from from one of his employees: "Tanks are rolling into the park. They are launching tear gas." But then, Rojo started receiving WhatsApp messages with rumors from people he doesn't even know. One man, who says his aunt's husband is a military officer, swore that Maduro has resigned. Professor Raisa Urribarri researches technology and politics at Universidad de Los Andes in Venezuela. She says it's hard to trace the origins of some messages in Venezuelan social media. They can be from panicked citizens, the opposition or the government.
Javier Rojo owns a pharmacy in the capital city of Caracas. As the chaos started, he gave his workers the day off, went home and turned on the TV -- only to find nothing was being reported. "Independent media has been gradually attacked or shut down over time," says professor Gregory Weeks, who teaches Latin American politics at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. "So that in general social media becomes the means by which you learn what's going on, on an ongoing basis."
Back at his house, Rojo says he started getting messages on WhatsApp like this one from from one of his employees: "Tanks are rolling into the park. They are launching tear gas." But then, Rojo started receiving WhatsApp messages with rumors from people he doesn't even know. One man, who says his aunt's husband is a military officer, swore that Maduro has resigned. Professor Raisa Urribarri researches technology and politics at Universidad de Los Andes in Venezuela. She says it's hard to trace the origins of some messages in Venezuelan social media. They can be from panicked citizens, the opposition or the government.
Correction? (Score:5, Interesting)
That should probably read 'a government'.
twitter propaganda is everywhere (Score:4, Insightful)
https://twitter.com/Louis_Alld... [twitter.com]
@Louis_Allday
This is too perfect.
Anti-Maduro Venezuelan on 19 January: "I'm living in the cutest apartment in Paris studying fashion... life is good"
24 January: "I live here [Venezuela]. I live this. live with having rationed food, toilet paper, basic human necessities."
How To Use The Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
The Internet has a protocol for this problem: Pics or it didn't happen.
Video is even better.
When you get right down to it, trust is a valuable, important thing. Civilizations that learn how to cultivate and protect it do better than those which don't. US media once knew this. Then they discovered they could lie for money, and burned all the trust they'd ever had (except among the elderly who are no longer capable of detecting that their once cherished institutions have turned into money-grubbing liars). I would have called them lying whores, but whores at least provide a useful service.
This is an opportunity for some Venezuelans to become a reporters. Real reporters. If they live through it, they could win the Pulitzer prize. Odds aren't good they'll live through it. Speaking truth to power in such places is hazardous to one's health.
Re:How To Use The Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
Video didn't work so well for the Covington Catholic kids, at least not a first. Fortunately people were stupid enough to be proud of their idiocy and posted a longer video, otherwise these kids would be poster children of hate. Hell, they're still portrayed that way, even with the hours of footage showing what actually happened.
All evidence requires a certain level of intelligence and criticism on the part of the consumer...which isn't something you can rely on at all.
Re: (Score:2)
Not today, Putin!
Don't believe anything (Score:2, Troll)
Most of the media in Venezuela is not controlled by the government, it is owned and controlled by capitalist oligarchs just like in the US.
And just like in the US there is a shitstorm of disinformation being pumped out by everyone. In fact the gaslighting has gone global.
And why should Maduro cede power? He just won an election. If the opposition wanted to win they should have taken part.
Want to know what to think? Ask the old old question: Who benefits? Then follow the money.
Re: (Score:2)
Late Stage Socialism (Score:5, Insightful)
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/0... [nytimes.com]
Conspicuous by its absence [youtube.com] in much of the mainstream news coverage of Venezuela’s political crisis is the word “socialism.” Yes, every sensible observer agrees that Latin America’s once-richest country, sitting atop the world’s largest proven oil reserves, is an economic basket case, a humanitarian disaster, and a dictatorship whose demise cannot come soon enough.
But socialist? Perish the thought.
Or so goes a line of argument [washingtonpost.com] that insists socialism’s good name shouldn’t be tarred by the results of experience. On Venezuela, what you’re likelier to read is that the crisis is the product of corruption, cronyism, populism, authoritarianism, resource-dependency, U.S. sanctions and trickery, even the residues of capitalism itself [greenleft.org.au]. Just don’t mention the S-word because, you know, it’s working really well in Denmark. [investors.com]
Curiously, that’s not how the Venezuelan regime’s admirers used to speak of “21st century socialism,” as it was dubbed by Hugo Chávez. The late Venezuelan president, said Britain’s Jeremy Corbyn [youtube.com], “showed us there is a different and a better way of doing things. It’s called socialism, it’s called social justice, and it’s something that Venezuela has made a big step toward.” Noam Chomsky was similarly enthusiastic when he praised Chávez in 2009 [youtube.com]. “What’s so exciting about at last visiting Venezuela,” the linguist said, is that “I can see how a better world is being created and can speak to the person who’s inspired it.”
Re:Late Stage Socialism (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Maduro and Chavez are/were near the Communist-end of the Socialist political spectrum, where Chomsky also likes to hang out.
From Wikipedia:
In a 2017 interview, after being asked if he would take Venezuela's failing economy as an admission that socialism "wrecked people's lives", philosopher Noam Chomsky said: "I never described Chavez's state capitalist government as 'socialist' or even hinted at such an absurdity. It was quite remote from socialism. Private capitalism remained ... Capitalists were free to undermine the economy in all sorts of ways, like massive export of capital."
To blatantly steal from Douglas Adams, Chavismo is almost, but entirely unlike, socialism.
Re:Late Stage Socialism (Score:5, Informative)
That's because Socialism isn't relavent (Score:2)
Venezuela is a small island nation that only recently became a civilized place when their Dictator, for reasons of his own, decided to share some wealth with the general population. This was not OK. The powers that be do not want this. That oil was theirs. He can have his banana republic but they get the oil. That's ho
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Umm, no. It's a country in South America. Look it up on a map sometime, and maybe next time your babbling will have a kernel of truth.
That said, never trust the opinions as to cause-and-effect of a country's collapse to someone who doesn't even know where the country is....
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By introducing a rationale for massive amounts of government control and approval for business, you lose the abity for free businessmen to adapt and replace it with standard corruption of cronyism. Since it shuts down opposition (business, political) nobody invests and nobody does what is necessary to make things work.
So nothing does.
Instead, you should teach your children (Score:2)
I guess you'll either be teaching them how to steal with firearms,
or educating them about the merits of universal basic income (a suspiciously "socialist" solution, no? but a solution nonetheless.)
Don't believe AI is coming for their jobs?
Good luck with that.
Strong media needed (Score:2)
This should illustrate the need for a strong, independent media.
I know that it is currently en vogue to say "we don't need the media, we can just do their jobs ourselves using the internet", but it should be obvious that if you take that approach, you wind up trusting the "truth" being peddled by propaganda websites such as Zerohedge and Alex Jones.
It is literally the job of a strong independent media to figure out what is truth and what is fiction. They are trained to do this and therefore can figure thing
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Strong media needed (Score:5, Insightful)
They are trained to do this and therefore can figure things out much better than you or I can.
You've never heard the media reporting on something you have personal experience with, have you? What's remarkable is the number of people who hear and read what the media write about things they know, and know they've gotten it wrong, but then trust the media to be right about everything else. And now this message that they media knows better than we do about what is right and true.
Not a strong media, but a diverse media (Score:3)
"media is controlled by the government" BULLSHIT (Score:3, Informative)
Window for Solving Misinformation is Short (Score:2)
The window of opportunity for us software engineers to solve the global problem of misinformation is rapidly closing -- and the problem is about to intensify with deep fakes. Particularly Russia but also various other states are pushing misinformation very hard but so are various political and commercial interests around the world.
As Net Neutrality is lost and not only misinformation flourishes but conspiracies about media organizations like Youtube degrading the searches on conspiracy theories are also li
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The window of opportunity for us software engineers to solve the global problem of misinformation is rapidly closing
Thank you for your contribution. It will fail because:
X -- it attempts to enforce a solution to a social problem via technical means.*
It's a mesh network that hides personal identities while retaining consistency of identity
A global mesh network with no validation of who is saying what, only that it is the same person speaking every time. Sure. That's gonna solve the problem.
* stolen from a standard Usenet posting responding to each know-it-all solution to Usenet problems.
It's "socialism" until the bodies start piling up. (Score:5, Insightful)
In 2009, Noam Chompsky said " “What’s so exciting about at last visiting Venezuela,” the linguist said, is that “I can see how a better world is being created and can speak to the person who’s inspired it.”
In 2017, he says "I never described Chavez's state capitalist government as 'socialist' or even hinted at such an absurdity. It was quite remote from socialism. Private capitalism remained ... Capitalists were free to undermine the economy in all sorts of ways, like massive export of capital."
It's always "I have seen The Future, and It Works", until the megadeaths become impossible to ignore, then "Oh, no, that wasn't real socialism. We need to try real socialism. This time for sure."
That trick never works. Never.
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So where are the bodies? (Score:2)
Maybe Venezuela could have pulled out of their nose dive with a bit of international help. Maybe they could have had Democracy and permanent first world nation status with just a friendly push in the right direction. But we'll never know, because to be blunt somebody is after their oil and by G
Re: It's "socialism" until the bodies start piling (Score:2)
He was right about national bourgeoisie though, it always betrays the country for the stronger enemy. That's how Morsi was toppled in Egypt.
SOCIALISM...death to anyone that tries it! (Score:2)
Re:Why does the USA foment chaos in distant lands? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you spend your whole life blaming everyone else for your problems it becomes difficult to accurately trace cause to effect.
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Oh yea, and some of the people in charge are secretly evil.
Re:Why does the USA foment chaos in distant lands? (Score:4)
Only a small percentage are secretly evil.
The rest are pretty open about it.
Re: Why does the USA foment chaos in distant lands (Score:2)
The fucking obvious ones, as it were...
Stop Lying (Score:5, Informative)
Stop lying. The refugee invasion from Libya caused the French and Italian military response, not the other way around. The Afghan government harboring Al Quada caused the US invasion, not the other way around. The Iranian puppetry in Baghdad caused the rise of ISIS, not the US. You desperately want to blame the US, because that's what you've been told to believe, but you just keep spreading lies.
Re: Stop Lying (Score:5, Insightful)
d. The Afghan government harboring Al Quada caused the US invasion, not the other way around.
I was about to laugh in his face (i.e. opium) but you beat me to it.
The West's MO has been to keep the Middle East destabilized; you can like it, love it or hate it... but a fact's a fact.
Why would we (the US) bother? Places like Afghanistan have been a mess for as long as I can remember and beyond by their own hands, not ours. What usually happens in the middle east is the USA sits back, waiting for them to police themselves and deal with the various despots who come to power until somebody gets delusions of greatness and invades somebody else, then the UN gets upset and we wade in busting heads, restoring the peace and returning things to normal for the sake of the world's access to fossil fuels at reasonable prices.
These folks have been hammering on each other for religious differences for over two thousand years, long before the USA existed. Our involvement has generally helped the region's stability (Though I expect some groups wouldn't agree with who got left in power). But generally the USA takes a very hands off stance and attempts to set the people of the countries we liberate on a course to self determination. Take Iraq... We fought TWO major conflicts with Iraq in my life time. The first one was to toss them out of Kuwait which Sadam had decided rightfully belonged to him (Why did he do this? Because he mistakenly thought the USA didn't have the will to protect Kuwait.) The second was to root out the terror network Sadam was hosting. However, even after taking the WHOLE country, we gave it back to the people of Iraq by establishing free and fair elections, not on our terms, but the terms determined by the people of Iraq.
We certainly didn't leave things worse than we found them, even if we didn't do everything right. Generally the middle east is better off because of US intervention.
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Why would we (the US) bother?
Profit.
Economically because a) it prevents the rise of potential competitors and b) these fuckers buy so much of your military hardware to kill each other, it's ridiculous.
Places like Afghanistan have been a mess for as long as I can remember
I believe the "I can remember" part, but don't forget that your life is short. The Internet is choke full of pictures from Afghanistan in the 1960s and many of them you could label "my hometown in the US, 1965", post them on FB and nobody would notice. The country used to be modern and advanced. Then the cold war gaming between the US and
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IF "profit" was the USA's motives in the middle east, then explain to me how it was profitable to eject Iraq from Kuwaiti then turn the country and their rich natural resources (mostly oil) back over to it's previous owners who sell oil to us? Also, Why would we basically lay waste to Iraq's armed forces TWICE in 20 years, yet again turn it back over to the people of Iraq so they can sell us oil too? Why didn't we just KEEP all that oil for ourselves if profit was our motive?
Why? Because it's not about
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It turns out that no country with a population with an average IQ below 95 has ever formed a stable democracy, so trying to leave a democracy behind is just not a sensible option. It'd be better to install a brutal dictatorship that is friendlier to the US than the previous brutal dictatorship. Brutal dictators also a
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European allies wanted the so-called refugee influx! They begged for it. They even try to shame other countries for not wanting it also. They did it to themselves. They say it's immoral to not want millions of immigrants!
US did not create the Venezuela mayhem. The people there voted it in, then realized too late that it was the wrong thing to do. Here in the US there are also goof balls that want socialism and try to act like Venezuela is just an anomaly and not the typical result.
In all of those plac
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The last 100 years of history has shown that socialism inevitably breeds illiberal, totalitarian states. The further to the left a society goes, the more totalitarian it gets.
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The further to the left a society goes, the more totalitarian it gets.
Which, when you think about it, is the natural outcome of pushing socialism. At its heart, socialism is the antithesis of human nature. Humans as a group are not altruistic. The average human is concerned about what's in it for them, not whether it benefits some nebulous "other" or society as a whole. It doesn't mean humans are evil. It's the natural instinct for a species to focus on individual survival and that's been bred into us over millions of years. Socialism tells you the individual must sacri
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The word "socialism" definitely does not breed illiberal, totalitarian states : I just pronounced it many times and it had no effect.
Now we come to the meaning : in the US various features of various European countries are ridiculed as "socialism". This includes universal healthcare, state funded higher education, employee rights etc. Clearly many European countries are not illiberal, totalitarian states - hence even the meaning of the word "socialism" does not breed illiberal, totalitarian states.
Now, som
What does the US have to do with this? (Score:5, Funny)
Hey man, the U.S. is just backing up what CANDA said - that Maduro is not the recognized president.
If you find yourself on the wrong side of Canada, you should be questioning your life-choices.
P.S. if you want to ask about interference, perhaps you should be asking why you are backing the person backed by both Cuba (who sends military and social manipulation advisers to Venezuela) or Russia (same deal, and they support Maduro).
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Is that why you support universal single-payer health care, SuperKendall?
Yes of course (Score:3, Funny)
Of course I support single payer health care, after all as a developer I make enough to afford the supplemental insurance that ensures I will not die if I need to use it.
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Sorry, in Canada you're not allowed to buy your own health insurance. You can die in the queue like all the peons. Or go to the US, which is what our actual rich people do.
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That fake argument has been debunked by interviews with Canadians. I realize it's one-sided, but watch Sick-O. But the burden is on you since you made the statement. State your sources. Show that life expectancy is lower in Canada for a similar genetic group.
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I didn't say anything about life expectancy. I stated facts about our medical system. I am Canadian. We cannot choose to pay for health care outside the public system, it's illegal.
The US system is also terrible but for entirely different reasons.
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No, I live here. I assure you you cannot pay for your own health care or buy insurance for services provided by universal health care. Our private insurance is only for things the public health care system doesn't do - drugs, dental, vision, etc.
And I personally know people who have travelled to the US to get surgery that they would otherwise have had to wait 6 months to 2 years for here.
Maduro is probably not a nice chap (Score:2, Informative)
I think this is our CIA gearing up for more "liberation". Here's a series of clips of Donald Trump saying the quiet part out loud. [youtube.com] e.g. we're going in to steal their oil. You can argue that Maduro was gonna steal it anyw
Say that again with a straight face (Score:5, Insightful)
but he is the democratically elected representative of the nation.
He is no more "democratically elected" than any other tyrant in history.
Which is why CANADA supports the fellow who actually won, and many are calling for an open and monitored election to take place...
As for "probably not a nice chap", turning the bread basket of South America into a hell-hole where there is literally nothing - not clean water, not clean food, not even toilet paper - someone who maid that happen, is the Devil incarnate. He has earned his place with the monsters of history like Stalin or Pol-Pot.
Sure. (Score:3, Insightful)
This is what happens when you boycott elections. Lefties in America stayed home because they didn't like Hilary and that got us Trump. Elections have consequences.
But it's more than that. I'm guessing the opposition party boycotted the election so they could de-legitimize Maduro in preparation for the US to help them over throw the government. Then they'll hand us the oil in exchange for power.
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Hey man, the U.S. is just backing up what CANDA said - that Maduro is not the recognized president.
Seriously.. Not to mention that the Russians are supporting Maduro because they want that military base of operations in the next door neighbor's yard..... But you don't hear that discussed much. It supports the wrong narratives.
Re:What does the US have to do with this? (Score:5, Interesting)
Canada is supporting Israel's ethnic cleansing in Palestine.
Canada is not a good example of doing the right thing.. and is becoming increasingly corrupt..
Israel isn't doing anything of the sort in Palestine or any other place. They are actually quite willing for the Palestinians to co-exist with them. The problem is that the Palestinians have adopted a "Death to Israel" motto and have tried to live up to it, forcing Israel to react in self defense. It's amazing, when the rockets and suicide bombers stop in Israel, the bombing stops in Palestine too. Wonder why that is?
But, I'm guessing that's not fitting your narrative very well.
As your self the following: Israel has the military capacity to lay waste to the Palestinians, they *could* kill every one of them in short order, yet they haven't. Do you really think that if the shoe was on the other foot, if the Palestinians had the ability to lay waste to Israel, that the Palestinians wouldn't be true to their profession of hate and destroy Israel in short order? Who do you blame then?
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It's amazing, when the rockets and suicide bombers stop in Israel, the bombing stops in Palestine too.
Yes, the bombing stops, but the land seizures continue.
If Israel started a Palestinian genocide (Score:2)
Palestinians hate Israel because they keep getting their land snatched and impoverished as a result. They're getting away with it because there's a significant portion of Christians (especially in America) who wa
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Why does the USA foment chaos in distant lands? (Score:4)
I know it's popular to blame the US for everything that happens.. but shits been hitting the fan all over the world a lot longer than the US has been in existence.
If the people are being taken care of, I doubt there would be massive demonstrations.
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Maybe, just maybe, this is a mess created by Chavez and further worsened by Maduro.
I know it's popular to blame the US for everything that happens.. but shits been hitting the fan all over the world a lot longer than the US has been in existence.
If the people are being taken care of, I doubt there would be massive demonstrations.
Anyone who's worked in IT long enough knows that if you stick your neck into a mess, you end up being responsible for it.
I can buy that the US isn't initially responsible for the mess Venezuela is in... but the US just can't manage to keep their dicks out of it, so they've taken ownership.
The US has two problems with it's approach to Venezuela
1. Guiado is still a socialist. He might dress it up as a nicer, gentler kind of Socialism but he's still pretty firmly on the Left.
2. It doesn't matter who
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Why do you support Maduro?
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Why do you support intervention in foreign countries? How many times in the past 65 years has that actually helped?
Re:Why does the USA foment chaos in distant lands? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do you support intervention in foreign countries? How many times in the past 65 years has that actually helped?
Weren't you recently going off on slashdot about how the US has a glorious past punching Nazis in WWII? I'm pretty sure all the Nazis attacked in WWII were on foreign soil.
(Or is this another one of your positions where it's okay, but only if their politics match yours?)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Welcome to leftists politics - only good if it "feels" good.
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about how the US has a glorious past punching Nazis in WWII?
Let's not forget that the Nazi part of America filled Madison Square Garden as late as 1939. One of the reasons that the US initially stayed out of the war was fatigue from WW1, but the other was that the Nazis had, in fact, a lot of support in the US, both popular and among the elite (The Bush family was among those who made deals with Nazi Germany well into the war).
Yes, once the US had decided that being on the side of the Allies was in its best interest, they simply outproduced everyone and crushed them
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Maduro and his military are pretty close to a Nazi. Just because they are left on the spectrum doesn't mean they can't be Nazis, after all Hitler and Stalin were both leftist socialists bent on socializing healthcare and taking over private industry.
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Good try. Next, you'll us Venezuela is invading Poland.
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Again, WHY are you supporting Maduro?
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You will notice I specified "past 65 years". Plus, as you well know, Nazis are a special case. Whenever they appear, it is incumbent on all free peoples to come together to put them down.
Last I heard, there were no goosestep-incarnated Nazis down in Venezuela.
LOL.. You DO realize that South America was a favored place for the Nazi's to flee after WW2 right? I suspect more than one ended up in Venezuela and may still be there. The "Bolivar revelation" of Maduro is not exactly Nazi in name, but it shares many of the same concepts, principles and practice that brought Hitler and his party to power. Largely it's been successful in destroying the economies of most of South America, where socialism took deep root in the poverty ridden societies that once thrived down
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Of course not.
I'm saying that the concepts of socialism behind the rise of power of the Nazis are alive and well, in South America, they just have Spanish and Portuguese names down there. Further these concepts where not unique to pre-WW2 Germany, they didn't originate there nor did they die there. They just keep taking root in poverty and desperate economic conditions, like in Germany (and many times before that), with the promise of a better, more fair way that some then have to force on the masses.
It
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Oh, fuck right off. Nazis killed socialists. Socialism was not the concept behind the rise of power of the Nazis.
Lay off the Infowars, my man.
Dude.. Learn your history.. Socialist is in the Nazi party name (The National Socialist German Workers' Party) for Pete's sake and they where anti-communist and anti-capitalist spewing (among other things) socialist clap trap. Basically the democrat party of their day.
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Do you also believe that a tiger shark is a tiger? Is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea a democratic republic?
How stupid are you?
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So, are you really trying to claim the Nazi's where not socialist, yet claimed they where? LOL.. And I'm being called stupid....
Those who know their history are condemned to watch while others repeat it over their objections.
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So, are you really trying to claim the Nazi's where not socialist, yet claimed they where?
No, Nazis were not socialist.
https://www.britannica.com/sto... [britannica.com]
I'm going to do you a big favor. Here is the entire Encyclopedia Britannica article on "Were the Nazis Socialists?" Maybe if you learn the actual history of where the "socialist" part of "national socialist" comes from, and what happened to socialists during the Night of Long Knives, you'll give up the notion that "Nazis were socialists tho" once and for a
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Seriously? Without intervention, proxy wars and NATO the world would look a LOT different. Milosevich close enough for you? How about Saddam or Hitler? China would probably still be fighting against Japan if it existed at all. The US wouldn't have any important trade routes and oil open for either the US or Europe.
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Surprisingly, not.
So, you believe a country being a "hellhole" is reason enough for the US to invade?
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You know the Trump administration is discussing military intervention, right? And just today, Bolton "accidentally" let out that they're considering sending 5,000 troops to Columbia for...something.
It's Wag the Dog, Rooster. Just like Bill Clinton did in Serbia. When you're having big trouble at home, nothing gets the mainstream media all fired up and saluting like seeing US firepower blowing some
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You didn't answer the question - we've done what the EU. the OAS, and many others have done - recognized Maduro's opponent. How is that a drumbeat for war? Other than Maduro demanding the US embassy to close (and then backing down when we rightfully pointed out the US embassy is US soil and we will not tolerate a Venezuelan invasion)... We recognized the winner, we did not threaten Maduro, we responded to his threats of violence with defensive posturing only - and we're the bad guys. Because military pe
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Let me stop you right there. First, the "EU, OAS and many others" have not proposed sending troops to Venezuela.
Second, are you really suggesting that the fact that the EU has adopted a policy is a good reason for us to adopt the policy? If so, you're showing some growth there, Rooster.
This isn't about who to recognize or who to condemn. This is about direct intervention.
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The EU, the OAS, and many others weren't threatened by Maduro, either - were they?
It's also good to see the EU on the right side of things - in this case, clear electoral fraud. Again, if the EU, the OAS, Australia, and dozens of others see the facts, why can't we? This isn't about direct intervention - it was about "what do we do if Maduro carries through on his promise to invade our embassy". Would you prefer we have no plans?
More Americans died in Afghanistan under President Obama than President Bush
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So now your argument is that we should do military intervention because Obama and Bush did military intervention? Now we're getting somewhere.
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Nice strawman, pope! No - I would advocate using military defense to defend our borders - and an embassy IS a border. Glad we have a President more interested in getting us out of wars and using negotiating tactics instead of drones and bombs and troops. And yes, when you negotiate with a bully, you do need to use the language and threats they understand - you don't have to carry through, just speak their language. Maybe it's why President Obama sucked so terribly at foreign policy...
But you've never an
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Except, the only people talking about violence against US personnel in the embassy are in the Trump administration
It's such an obvious ploy. Venezuela didn't threaten the US embassy in any way except to say, "things are getting hairy, you might want to go home" and the next thing we hear is Trump warning Venezuela not to hurt any US citizens. It's the traditional, "why are you hitting yours
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The biggest "news" channel in the US is Fox "news."
How is that the democratic left? It's the propaganda arm of the Republican party.
Re:I feel for them (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest "news" channel in the US is Fox "news."
How is that the democratic left? It's the propaganda arm of the Republican party.
These days it may be more accurate to say that the Republican Party is the political wing of Fox News.
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Faux News.
FTFY. :-/
It is a sad state of affairs when the MSM (Mainstream media) "News" have become comedy and comedians tell the actual news. :-/
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Only a naive fool would believe someone has no biases.
Of course everyone in the entertainment business is lying -- that why it is prudent to check multiple sources.
Re:I feel for them (Score:4, Interesting)
Fox News is a single cable channel that leans right.
Is that a balance against the other major cable news channels of MSNBC and CNN which lean heavy left and left?
Does that also balance out the 3 major OTA commercial news channels (which are also shown on cable) of NBC , CBS and ABC? Those also lean left, some more than others.
You have all these left leaning networks and you bitch about ONE right leaning network in Fox News?
Wow....at least there is one dissenting voice out there....
MSNBC and CNN only lean left on social issues (Score:3)
MSNBC & CNN are left of center on social issues (Gay rights, Abortion, general civil rights, etc). They're that way because they're corporatists, and they go with whatever has the least controversy and generates the most money. Gays money spends well, so they're for Gay
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You lost me on this one....
The left channels (pretty much all but Fox)...give AOC nothing but creampuff interviews, and even with those she says stupid stuff and almost blows it.
If someone had AOC there with hard questions, she'd come off as a blithering idiot on most real world questions and scenarios....but her handlers won't allow that.
Even with all her protections, she still has negative
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Huh?! (Score:2, Insightful)
Here in the US the media is controlled by the democratic left - just as many lies to the people as in Venezuela.
You mean the media that got Trump elected? That "democratic left"?
The media that has put a Republican majority in our local, state and federal governments for 20 years now?
Did you know that the number one cable news channel is Fox News? Are you saying that they are controlled by the "democratic left"?
If you think the US media is "democratic left", I don't want to know what you think is centrist or even right wing.
I bet you think Venezuela is "socialist" too.
We're supposed to listen to the other side, but th
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You mean the media that got Trump elected? That "democratic left"?
What got Trump elected can be summed up in one word that I don't think I even need to mention, but will anyway:
Hillary
When you start a presidential campaign with 1/3 of the country thinking you should be in prison instead of on the campaign trail then Bad Things Happen (tm).
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Here in the US the media is controlled by the democratic left
That's not true, and you omitted News Corp [wikipedia.org], Sinclair Broadcast Group [wikipedia.org], Tribune Media [wikipedia.org], and other conservative media conglomerates; not to mention conservative shows that dominate the News Talk radio format.
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Not sure what this comic list comes from, but you can hardly blame gay people for turning the tide on the use of social ostracism to hurt people, having been kept down by it for millenia.
How does it feel?
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The Government and Media Companies are equally at fault.
The Government will always want to only have portrait what looks good to them, and not have their dirty Landry shown, they will always be a force to keep the news down and as censored as they think they can make it. Right now the two party system in America, where both parties have enough power to want the other side to be seen poorly, so they will tolerate such freedoms.
The Media companies are out for profit. To maximize profits all their stuff they
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Congratulations! For nitpicking and pointing out that I suffer from dyslexia. And discrediting the points I have made, because of such disability.
When writing my Masters Thesis, I needed to spend extra weeks reviewing the spelling and correct word use, and needed others to review it, because of it. Now to make a point on Slashdot, I have 5 minutes to express my idea. And sometimes spelling will get lost, especially using a GNU spell checker.
Thank you for being a jerk.
Another US South American Coup Attempt (Score:3, Insightful)
USA sort out your own f'**ing mess and stay out of other peoples' countries.
You say you make the world safe for democracy. That's BS, you kill democratically elected governments who don't let you steal resources, or who you have some political disagreement with.
Venezuelan crisis is a creation of US economic sabotage. (embargos, preventing international lending, etc etc) Wikiped
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you are an ignorant. it's easy to win an election when you jail the opposition leaders, ban them for running on hand pick the election directors that announce the results. One of the former ones is even chancellor right now
Crisis has been since 2013. Try being in line for 3 hours just to buy a package of flour. Or try seeing prices double each 3 months (now it's less than 1 month)
Re:voting fraud (Score:2)
That being said, around the world, in all but a handful of countries, whenever there are close elections, the losing party ALWAYS claims fraud. Why wouldn't you? Sad but true.
And even those election-accepting countries have problems like
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The below was originally written in response to an article [benjaminstudebaker.com] blaming the Venezuelan economic issues on oil price declines, so you'll see references to that. I'm posting this as-is, rather than rewriting it. In the year or so since I wrote it, things have only gotten worse, in terms of lack of food and in terms of oil production (despite recently rising oil prices, up $10/barrel in that time), to the point where we're seeing news stories [reuters.com] about treason charges for oil workers in a futile attempt to get product