US attempts to impose regime change in Venezuela continued apace Monday,
with Vice President Mike Pence’s promise of new “concrete action” coming in the form of a new round of sanctions against the Maduro government.
Pence reiterated that “all options are on the table,” and that the US
would not rule out removing Maduro militarily from power. They may have
less support for doing this than they initially figured, however.
Brazilian officials are saying they only want a “non-military solution”
to Venezuela and are absolutely opposed to the US invading. On top of
this, Brazilian Vice President Hamilton Mourao says Brazil will not allow the US to use their territory in any such invasion.
Past indications are that US invasion of Venezuela was to come through
deploying large numbers of troops to Colombia and invading that was.
Colombia seems fine with this, though Brazil had previously been seen as
on the side of unconditional US-imposed regime change, and that change
might suggest a change in how well supported the US war would be.
Looks like Brazil doesn’t want a flood of refugees. The so called Lima Group wasn’t in favor of a US invasion, either. Now the empire is tasked with trying to get their death squads and the necessary logistics into the country without triggering open war between states. It’s the same old coup playbook, only this time it’s the Junior Varsity bench warmers that are executing them.
Never fear, there are some veteran flunkies from the Ray-gun/pappy Bush era present for the sole purpose of ensuring a certain level evil and slime is maintained.
This is where little Marco stepped in it when he tweeted the pic of
Ghaddafi which only reminds all the other countries of Libya and the last time R2P was abused by the 5 eyes empire.
The CFR is trying to use a report that says exactly the opposite of what it’s spokesperson, the inept and moral degenerate Richard Haas claims it does, while the MSM once again refuses to read or report on the report’s findings.
Just another day in the empire………….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_to_protect
https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/canada-us-coup-venezuela
Rubio? A truly vile creep.
US amasses special ops in Puerto Rico, army in Colombia to oust Maduro – Russian Security Council
https://www.rt.com/news/452431-venezuela-us-oust-maduro/
This will never end as long as the DC political class can rob the public. The DC suburbs are now richer than any other zip codes in the USA. Their main productions are war, misery, hatred, terrorism, deceit, fraud……
All directed by capitalist billionaires who would rather just hire private armies anyway since the death of the government would mean the death of the constitution and any pretense of them being at all accountable back to society.
Those billionaires have power through government. Without that power and government protection/subsidies/sweetheart deals, they would have to compete. But it is cheaper to own politicians, regulatory agencies and such.
Socialism just changes the old elites with new elites. Worse. .Socialism is intrinsically inefficient. There is no way of determining what prices should be. “Experts” decide what should be produced, how much and what resources can be allocated. Turf wars result within the government. That’s the model of the modern progressive state.
The old joke in one of the Socialist countries was, ” they pretended to pay us and we pretended to work”.
They have their power through capital. Sorry about your delusion.
You’re a slave to capital, not the state. Government doesn’t oppress people, PEOPLE OPPRESS PEOPLE.
So, rich capitalist can force people.to.buy their products? They can suppress competition. Without the State’s power. How would this be accomplished?
Fact is that socialism isn’t control of the State by the people. It’s control of the people by the State. A bureaucratic elite that control them. Like all top down systems, it draws psychopaths and sociopaths to those positions.
When a proportion of the population resists some version of cultural revolution is initiated. Lots of dead. Production drops. Average standard of living drops or in the case of very
poor counties is slowed. The environment is trashed The new ruling class does very well.
Your socialist society is based on force. Free exchange is made illegal. Property is stolen at gunpoint. Community is destroyed. Neighbors and family inform on each other.
You want a society based on fear. Supported by violence. Run by the lazy and incompetent.
And what would your role be in such a society? Your failure to answer this question which I have asked a number of times is telling.
Another triggered libertarian ? So funny how twisted up their panties get when they realize they’re losing a class struggle via their own religious experience most commonly known as capitalism.
Too bad capitalism is completely insufficient going forward.
After Trump exposes the elite for what they truly are, capitalism is pretty much done. You can’t reform a system that legalized fraud and mass murder for profit. Young folks want nothing to do with antiquated systems that reward corruption more so and much quicker than moral constructive behavior.
Better figure out YOUR next role, comrade………..
Hilarious. The only thing keeping countries claimed by ignorant “social democrats” to be socialist ( Sweden, Denmark etc) is a core of capitalism. Those countries turned AWAY from socialism in the ’90’s after their economies suffered so badly. Of course they DON’T consider themselves socialist. And right of center parties are rapidly gaining in all those countries.
Of course, the Soviet Socialist states are…. GONE. So, socialism won????
But there are socialist type countries around. Really poor and corrupt countries.
Meanwhile, despite being asked again and again, you continue to evade simple questions posed to you. Like where you would fit in to your proposed nirvana. Betting you don’t want to be working on a collective farm or factory farm. You’re going to be one of the enlightened planners, organizers or such. In other words, a parasite.
Likely you have no real skills. Nothing to contribute to the community. You could change that, but the political means is much more attractive to the unproductive than actually functionally working.
Likely you learned your failed ideology by professors that exist only through forced confiscation of the production of others. That explains their worship of the State. Their meal ticket and extravagant compensation is largely a result of the State……
Your reply is a perfect example of how capitalists measure their worth. By how much capital they can generate via how well they can exploit others. This is why capitalism is dying. It’s an antiquated system that was never more than a stepping stone in the evolution of society.
Labor is redundant to the point of almost being obsolete yet your religious experience won’t allow you to think beyond the 1950’s binary thought trap of socialism vs capitalism.
Time to wake up grandpa, it’s not 1955 anymore.
Exactly who is exploiting someone? By efficiently producing good and services? By making those goods and services available at lower and lower work hours of employees?
How awful.
The exploitation is by the State. By those that do not produce anything of value. Exploitation by telling others how to run their lives. Using force to do that.
Yes. Marx believed Capitalism was a transitional period and would be supplanted by socialism. That was supposed to happen once industrialization was well underway. Didn’t happen. Why? Because industrial workers figured out that they were better off without socialism
Sure. Some were successfully conned. That’s why the populations in those countries got rid of socialism.
It’s you that have the obsolete ideas. Socialism doesn’t work.
You should really read some Marx and quit reading so much McCarthy.
I love it when the ad hominen attacks let me know another libertarian snowflake has been sent to his safe space.
Your whole straw man fallacy attack on anyone that criticizes capitalism is soooo predictable !
So funny when libertarians finally figure out the person hitting them over the head with the “gubment” isn’t their friend and that when you take away the “gubment” they’ll just use the church or some other entity to beat them over the head………
Anyone that thinks exploitation of the few by the many is good or that the economy should decide how society is ordered instead of the other way around is truly an indoctrinated sheep of the bankster church of capitalism.
No wonder God is dead, capitalist exploitation has been converted into a religious experience !
Still are unwilling to answer a few basic questions. Not a surprise.
And Marx and Engels? Read all three volumes of das Kapital cover to cover. AND The Theories of Surplus Value which was to be volume IV. Guessing you haven’t.
Amusing that Marx needed Engels to publish his works. He needed a capitalist to fund himself.
Also amusing is Marx was wrong about virtually everything he wrote.
Socialism failed again and again. But the bodies piled up. Another point you fail to address.
Here is an inconvenient truth: socialism isn’t beneficial to people. It’s toxic. It’s not a peaceful ideology. It is based on violence. It doesn’t produce prosperity. It produces poverty. It doesn’t create equality, it creates a different ruling class. It doesn’t empower the individual, it subjugates the individual to the State.
Here’s the actual point of this conversation. I’m not advocating for socialism. You have in your own deluded mind convinced yourself that anyone that isn’t on team capitalism is a socialist.
Time to wake up gramps, capitalism has eaten itself and shown itself for the crony system it has always been.
The only people who won’t allow a new system that isn’t capitalism, socialism, or communism are the people with all the capital. Mostly the same crony capitalists who have always controlled the lion’s share of the capital due to capitalism’s inherent flaws.
Capitalism has always, and will always be cronyism.
Ask any Rockefeller, Morgan, Rothschild, etc and they’ll tell you the dirty little secret of capitalism is that it hates competition.
Capitalism is insufficient going forward due to labor being redundant and the inherent corruption capital ALWAYS creates and amplifies within any society.
Yep. Crony capitalists hate competition. That’s why they love the State. A powerful centralized State allows them to suppress their competition.
But go for it. Put together exploited workers and go compete. Here is the problem with that…. most “exploited” workers have no interest in setting up their own businesses . Because they have no desire to risk. The other problem is the State. The bureaucracy will raise costs and delay.
BTW, claims that labor would become redundant have been going on for decades.
You should do a little reading on what capital, wealth, savings and money actually are. You don’t seem to understand any of those.concepts.
I could give you a hundred books on the subjects, but likely a waste. You see, I’ve read the books your ideology is based on. But you haven’t read much at all based on what you write.
BTW, Rockefeller, Morgon and Rothschild are dead. Are you suggesting a seance?
“Crony capitalists hate competition. That’s why they love the State.”
Very true.
And historically, there is no other kind of capitalism. “Crony capitalism” is redundant.
You can make the same historical claim of any political, economic or social system in history. Nihilism philosophy isn’t very productive imo.
Here is the thing: there are capitalists that are not cronies of the state. Therefore, it follows that crony capitalism, while that form may be dominant, it is not the ONLY capitalism that exists. Your premise is therfore incorrect. A logical fallacy.
I’m not a nihilist. That doesn’t mean I have to pretend that capitalism is something it isn’t.
No, there’s no such thing as a capitalist who isn’t a crony of the state, any more than there’s any such thing as a snake that isn’t a reptile. It’s part of the historical, practical, and working definitions.
You’re conflating capitalism with free trade/exchange/markets. They aren’t the same thing.
Is it possible for humankind to develop a social system that doesn’t entail a ruling class? I don’t know. I hope so, but it hasn’t yet.
That was Marx’s dream, but every last implementation of his idea for accomplishing it failed. Why? In my opinion its fatal failing was less a failure of economics than of naively believing that once the preeminent tool of the ruling class, the state, was taken over by or on behalf of a new ruling class (the proletariat), it could and would eventually “wither away.”
New ruling classes don’t give up their main tools. They hold onto those tools and become old ruling classes. If you don’t smash the tools, you don’t change the outcome. It’s like trying to stop Amazonian deforestation by replacing the name-plates on the bulldozers instead of by putting sugar in their gas tanks.
Nope. You can redefine away, but it doesn’t change a thing.
Heck. You don’t even understand what capitalism is.
Making a (poor) analogy isn’t an arguement. Neither is a (poor) metaphor.
And no. Marx got both the economics and the understanding of human nature wrong. But those that claim to follow Marxist doctrine understand the power of resentment and envy.
You’re one of the most devoted McCarthyites I’ve ever had the displeasure of engaging with.
Fine, don’t engage. Works for me.
As far as the claim of being a McCarthyism advocate? Very amusing since I have always been an advocate of free speech. Never advocated political correctness. Always been a critic of State over reach. And had a close family member who was one of those persecuted by the State under that vile individual.
Lot’s of swinging on your part. Clean whiff again.
I understand exactly what capitalism is. You can have capitalism (a mixed, state-regulated industrial economy premised on the primacy of capital accumulators/concentrators as the ruling class). Or, perhaps, maybe, you can have free markets. But you can’t have both.
I agree that Marx got a lot of stuff wrong. What he didn’t get wrong, he cribbed from the libertarian class theory of Charles Comte and Charles Dunoyer.
Ah hate to break it to you, but not all capitalists are members of the ruling class. Nor are the majority of them beneficiaries of the State or the States regulation and tax schemes.
Most of the capitalists in the USA are oppressed by the State. True, a number of them band together in a vain attempt to deflect the more odious policies inflicted on them.
Still, the factors of production are capital, land and labour. Under socialism, all three are controlled by the State. Fascist economics being the dominant economic system, which is, I think, what you are getting at.
I had to look up your reference to Dunoyer and Conte although they rang a bell. Both had connections with Jean Baptiste Say and Frederic Bastiat who I am much more familiar with. Likely I read some of their work when I was reading classical liberals back in the 70’s. Some of that was only available in French, and my French is pretty rudimentary.
I don’t disagree that it is human nature to use wealth and power to secure their status, power and wea!th. But the devil is in the detail and those like Chomsky who think the State is the answer to curb the influence of a ruling class are mistaken. The State serves power. Always. The forms of that power might change.
So how could this change? IMO, you are correct in your belief that free markets are the great equalizer. But I also believe that the factors of production need to be in private hands. Many reasons that I do not have the energy to expand on.
There is also quite a lot of confusion on hierarchical natures in society and class. But both are likely to be undercut by individual choice and free markets. These would empower the individual, make the State less attractive and hugely increase prosperity.
You don’t need to read books if you actually engage in critical thought. You’ve been indoctrinated your whole life and now you surround yourself with books that support your antique and insufficient ideology.
Just for laughs, you might want to listen to Bob Dylans’ “The Times Are Changing” .
You think you have a new slant on things because of the wisdom of youth. Which is very funny.
As far as reading? As I pointed out, I’ve read the books that your ideology is based on. Amusing that you, who haven’t bothered think I’m the one that is indoctrinated. Also amusing that I was anti war at 15 years old. When the vast majority of the public was very pro war. Obviously I was susceptible to State propaganda…. lol.
Again, you didn’t get the drift. I was a leftist when very young and realized the truth when I was older. I actually re read Marx and a number of the French Socialists later in life. Most likely I am much better versed in those ideas than you are. So, exposed to both sides.
Sorry. Once again, a swing and a miss by you.
I second the motion on listening to Dylan. And not just that song. All of it. All the time. Finally got to see him live last fall.
I bought my first Dylan album in the mid ’60’s.
When he had his return to public performance some 12 years ago I saw him in concert. I can’t say I knew him well, but not sure anyone does. His mind works very differently.
Early Dylan had a lot of the old protest songs from the turn of the century. Then his own works grew from that ground. I think today’s youth would benefit from listening.
The youth today have no clue of what things were like in the mid/late 60’s. Friends coming home in boxes. Some survivors maimed in body and others twisted in mind.
Dylan reminded me that the struggle was not unique to that period but is eternal.
Apocalypse Now should be on a recommended list to watch. And, of course, George Orwell in general to read.
Such interesting minds.
I wasn’t born until 1966, so there’s never been a time in my life when Dylan wasn’t the greatest living American songwriter. I’m sure I knew a lot of other songs before (in fact, I was in an elementary school vocal performance group before), but the first song I specifically remember learning in school was “Blowin’ in the Wind.”
“So, rich capitalist can force
their products? They can suppress competition. Without the State’s power. How would this be accomplished?”
Ask any Rockefeller. Not terribly knowledgeable about how capitalism works are you ?
You also don’t know shit about socialism other than the McCarthy version you were indoctrinated with throughout your entire life.
You even had to make stuff up to prove your non-point. Perfect example of emotional thinking by a conservative.
You’ve never asked that question of me before so I find it rather funny you make that claim.
You want me to speculate on my role ? What’s your role in this society ? Are you an exploiter of labor ? Gambler that uses other people’s money to gamble with ? Criminal who commits fraud with absolute impunity ? Or criminal that kills other people for the natural resources they live on or around ? Do you exploit their labor due to the color of their skin ?
US shipping heavy arms for VZ invasion per Russian FM:
The headline of this article seems to have been used countless times before. Just change Venezuela to Iran, Syria, North Korea…….
Shooting missiles from ships or planes or dropping bombs from jets and drones could take place even if all neighboring states disallow their territory to be used. I am worried. Deep state hasn’t gotten the profitable war against Syria it wanted and there is pent-up demand. That tyrant Chavez had the audacity to die and that frustrated/delayed the militarists’ plans. If only we had candidate trump instead of president trump to stop the neocons here.
Socialism has to be crushed where ever it raises its head.
If they allow socialism to succeed anywhere people will want it everywhere.
Not the people who have lived under socialism. They have been innoculated.
Kinda like capitalism you mean ?
NPR’s spin was nauseating: innuendo suggesting without evidence that the self-proclaimed president is the legitimate president, no balanced discussion of how free and fair the election that put the actual president in power was, a coherent State-Dept narrative that refrained from directly lying, but quoted the lies of coup plotters extensively. It was pure cheer-leading for a coup.
“Maduro and his allies view the aid — particularly that coming from the U.S. — as part of an attempt to destabilize his government…”
That’s just one despot’s crazy idea, NPR implies. Except this from Reuters: “Humanitarian action needs to be independent of political, military or
other objectives,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in
New York.”
She was very clearly referring to the US “aid” effort… ie a USAID regime change scheme.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-un/un-warns-against-politicizing-humanitarian-aid-in-venezuela-idUSKCN1PV2GF
But don’t worry everyone, this is all just a big stage show put on by Trump to humiliate the neocons! All the ill will and hatred dredged up, all the economic damage, and all the people hurt or killed are just acceptable collateral damage for Trump’s brilliant plan to stick it to his enemies. Never mind that he could have just kept them out of his government in the first and called them nicknames, nope – far better that he should let them burn down a whole country to make them look like fools.
On another note, everyone realizes Justin has gone insane, right? I mean, the fact he no longer allows comments on his columns tells me he is aware that the things he is saying are ludicrous and indefensible.
I guess if there is no shooting war, no one suffers in his mind.
Justin has done a yeomans job. A voice of value when few valued those such as him who put it on the line. One who has done much to advance the awareness of the warfare State.
I cannot follow his reasoning on Trump. But neither can I follow the reasoning of those that think Sanders is the answer either.
On the one hand, yes, the things he is saying are ludicrous and indefensible.
On the other hand, I would not assume that he understands that, or that that’s the reason he had comments turned off on his articles. He’s never been a fan of having comments on his articles, but has always felt that if there were going to be comments on his articles he should keep up with them and respond to them. Given his illness, I suspect his reason for shutting them down is because he’d rather spend his time and energy on other things, not because he is simultaneously completely Trump-deranged and realizes that to be the case.
https://youtu.be/pkR9YWqfjsA
There’s some good gems in Paul Jay’s interview with Larry Wilkerson.
The Koch brothers once again direct US foreign policy.
When do we get to vote on this?
Who amongst our leaders is going to step forward to speak against this madness?
One tiny bit of good news from Jair’s Brazil?