US officials on Monday accused Venezuela of election manipulation and suggested more sanctions could be imposed on the country after President Nicolas Maduro secured a third six-year presidential term.
Venezuela’s election authority said Maduro won 51% of the vote while the leading opposition candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, received 44%. The opposition is disputing the results, claiming that Gonzalez really won by a wide margin.
Two US officials speaking to reporters called on the election authority to release a detailed breakdown of the vote.
“I think what we would like to see happen next is have the National Electoral Council publish the detailed precinct-level results to see if they do in fact have the receipts that can both verify and justify the electoral results that they announced last night,” one of the officials said.
The officials did not announce any new sanctions but said more could come. “We are faced with potentially a new scenario,” one official said. “We are going to take that into account as we map forward where we may head with respect to sanctions toward Venezuela.”
The US rejected the results of Venezuela’s 2018 election and recognized opposition figure Juan Guaido as the “interim president” in 2019 despite Maduro being in power in Caracas. The Trump administration launched a regime change effort against Maduro that involved a failed coup and a ratcheting up of sanctions to a level that amounted to an economic embargo on Venezuela.
John Bolton, Trump’s former national security advisor, recently acknowledged that the administration knew its sanctions campaign would cause suffering in Venezuela and contribute to migration out of the country.
“There was no doubt the sanctions, along with the general economic deterioration before we imposed them, was driving a lot of people out of the country,” Bolton said. “That, to me, was a way to put pressure on the country.”
The Biden administration recently started engaging with the Maduro government and eased some sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry, but some have already been re-imposed.
In the wake of Sunday’s elections, some members of Congress are calling for regime change in Venezuela and a repeat of the policies that failed to unseat Maduro. Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) sent a letter to President Biden urging him to recognize Gonzalez as the president-elect.
It's none of anybody's business outside Venezuela. The US and its vassals are happy as Larry tolerating any number of dodgy nations like Egypt. The only reason Venezuela is bullied is because they wont submit to being in Washington's orbit.
Americans can't even manage their own elections at home, what business do they have in sovereign nations? They are idiots and belong in asylums.
Americans have been trained to believe US military empire is the world's best democracy.
Facts are facts; Venezuela has evolved to a modern democracy able to withstand US cruelty fairly well.
Here's a schematic of Venezuelan sociopolitical evolution that scares US totalitarian corporatism;
https://www.constituentassembly.org/Contents.en/website-contents.en.html
The idiots in Washington are determined to destabilize the Venezuelan society for regime change. That is all the ruling scum, regardless of party, knows how to do. They will do regime changes whenever nations elect governments they don’t like, bloody or otherwise. The CIA agents are part of every embassy around the world. That includes European governments in Berlin, Paris and London and others. They can do it in Washington too, most likely they had their finger on the trigger when JFK was assassinated and later his brother. They are insidious people, Netanyahu’s useful idiots.
I am convinced the CIA helped to elect idiots like Scholz, Baerbock and Harbeck and others in Germany and other European countries like Sweden and Finland. The Swiss too are being pressured to join NATO.
The ruling elites are insane power-hungry moneybags, normal they are not.
Venezuelan's tend to vote "Party" not Candidate and the Hugo Chavez party is highly popular. People do not want a return to neo-liberal rule they have too much Oil for the West to not interfere with their government once it steps away from being a Socialist Democracy.
If U.S. accused Venezuela of supporting the genocide in Palestine it would be less ridiculous.
You are funny.
I expect Venezuela did cheat the election, but that’s normal in at least the US, probably everywhere. Democracy, in practice, is all about winning elections by cheating.
The CIA is always there to meddle in elections and they always call the election rigged if the regime change they favored failed. It is how criminal ruling elites operate.
Sometimes the US verdict is the right one. It’s possible in this case. However, I don’t care either way. US elections are self evidently insecure. Why would I care about Venezuelan elections?
Also, it makes no sense treating voting as this sacred thing, as if no other system could be valid. We live in a time where “democracy” enjoys a cult status. Some Iranian leader one time was mocking it as “rule by the retarded.” That’s accurate.
Our “capitalism” in the US leads essentially to a similar ethos as slavery. Workers can be exploited. It seems much more important to support small businesses and a large middle class, more important to enable the young to build wealth. Free speech and gun rights are what make the US great. Maybe the rest of the Bill of Rights is praiseworthy, like the fourth. However, voting is stupid, not important.
Small and midsize business and trade unions are necessary for a large middle class, the backbone of the nation. That is exactly what neoliberal economics destroyed, big corporations wiped small business out, not taxes, unions used to protect and bargain in support of fair labor laws. Capitalism pure destroyed the balance. The MIDDLE CLASS IS SHRINKING with help from bad big money controlled government.
Government served big business at the expense of a strong working middleclass. Our elected officials are a class of millionaires who know profits but not wages and salaries. I support a free socialist market economy, the German way, what they and the Scandinavians had and are now destroying, replacing it with neo-liberal economics. That is to turn public properties in big private corporations, and deregulation and cheap labor is all about, Neoliberal Economics. Call me a socialist, the socialistic philosophy is what created the wealth of the European Social Democracies.
The US had a large middle class after WWII. We were the last standing developed economy. Our workers were in demand. We had resources, land, space, water, dollar standard, everything. America was rich. We would import materials, export finished goods. And we got fat without worry, didn’t care about the future, saw no need to defend what we had. We freely rebuilt Europe and Japan, SK as we saw fit. The US was boss.
A small group came to power in the name of fighting communism. It sought unipolar dominance. It abused US power. Separately, free trade and mass immigration empowered the rich and enabled them to hire foreigners instead of Americans. The US lost its wealth, but the world grew far richer still. The small US elite has failed trying to manage this globalism. They’ve lost their power dominance, thankfully. Many elites are probably good people who intentionally empowered the rest of the world. Everyone isn’t bad, and many bad things are done with biased but good intentions.
I’m not usually a believer in unions, but they have their place at times.
In the US, Medicare is a problem, not working well, needs competition. And healthcare costs in general are overly high due to a variety of problems, including the court system which is difficult to fix. Education costs are also too high. We have a problem in both sectors with managers who don’t contribute. Elon Musk has talked on this, workers who don’t contribute.
I don’t know Europe’s history. Europe needs nuclear energy. You can do anything with cheap energy, nothing without it.
Wow, you opened a can of worms. Unions, it takes a united workforce to negotiate fair wages and benefits and good labor laws. Workers had to fight and die for their rights. Union leaders are human and not perfect but the same is true for business leaders, but unions are expected to be Saints. Union jobs made the strong middle class possible. Unions have no lobbies to represent labor, government always sides with money against labor. Service labor unions are weak part time jobs with a big turnover, organizing is very difficult. I recall the effort to unionize farmworkers and the boycotts of vegetables, it helped but not much, farming has become industrialized for the most part.
Health care is too expensive because we don’t consider it a not for profit public service, it is for profit business. Medicare is too expensive because a big part of it is for profit private business. We spend about 20% of GDP for health care while other nations like Germany spend about 10% of GDP for top of the line health care. But the insurance industry is working to privatize all health insurance, there is lots of money to be made. Medicare is a watered down system because that is as far as big business would go, lots of profit when the part of life with most medical costs is taken off their hands, young and healthy people are profitable. Public education is a similar issue. The government sides with business and waters down social services, the watered down version of ACA was all the donor class allowed. SS is getting the same treatment, they abuse the SSTF some trillions of $$$ are invested in treasury bonds as the law requires, they use it to fund the national debt while cutting benefits, in other words the debtor is not paying back the loan. And of course stagnating wages and inflation reduce revenue, it used to be a pay-go system. Not raising minimum wages alone is a big loss of revenue for SS. Cutting corporate taxes and increasing defense budgets does not pay for needed services like infrastructure ,health care and education, it has to be cut to balance the budget. Corporate shareholders don’t contribute, and Mr. Musk knows it well. He used government’s help for his business, does he contribute his fair share for the public good?
That is a can of worms. I’ll reply further in a bit, but Musk once called himself a socialist. He absolutely benefited from the government, and he got ahead. Now, he wants to pull up the ladder. He’s producing at scale now; and it is amazing to see that. With his wealth and Tesla’s stock price, he could get so far ahead of everyone. Maybe it’s an example of capitalism working well. Google scares me. I don’t entirely trust Musk, but he seems at least aware of the dangers of technology.
He liked socialism when it served him, now he is not willing to contribute his share in support of others, like the working middle class. He is just another fake, a conman on the Trump level, part of our intellectual and moral bankrupt elite, the nations mad leadership.
Musk is a bit better. He runs his companies well and is a workaholic. Many large businesses, for whatever reason, seem poorly run.
He barely kept Tesla going until it was successful. He accomplished the impossible, albeit with the help of the government. Musk beat established car companies which is incredible. He did it partly I think by having China build him a factory rapidly. China might have wanted his technology, but Musk was in trouble before that factory was miraculously constructed in China.
I prefer Toyotas. I’m not a Musk fanboy. I’ve never believed in self driving cars. However, he seems to run his companies well. Musk won’t live much longer I fear. He works too much and doesn’t take care of himself.
Musk got his start early on. Made a big profit, and that profit enabled him to open doors to new opportunities. And he jumped in, got ahead, and took all the opportunities. Apple, the company, had huge stacks of money, couldn’t find anything to invest in. Bezos has tried to compete. None were as good as Musk.
Often good ideas are just purchased by others, but Musk pulled it off.
However, it might not be the best system, but there are so many worse players in the game. The war profit needs to be cut first.
Many nations pick and shape their economies what is best based on their history and culture. Capitalism needs socialism to bail it out every few years. The capitalists don’t understand the need of a prosperous middle class to purchase the products they produce, they need people to produce and are able to purchase. Cheap labor alone does not work.
Business needs infrastructure and investment in people, education and health, fertile soil for stable families. Stable jobs, food on the table, shelter and quality childcare is needed for healthy and stable families. We have too many children unable to concentrate in school because they are traumatized living in stressed out homes.
I don’t associate socialism with a middle class. I associate socialism with inefficient government programs that create waste and corruption leading to a collapse.
Socialism is powerful as a means of controlling a society. The US enjoys influencing open societies. Socialism can close off all avenues of influence, preventing outside influence. Socialism can also direct funds to important groups like the military, which then defend society. We call all these things “socialist,” but maybe they’re just politics. It’s not exactly normal to have classical liberalism, but it’s not normal either for the government to run all things directly.
Anyway, if you fund different groups, creating dependency, you can control them. The military is most important. Similarly, if you control the culture, you can reduce external influence. Socialism is about power.
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Regarding liberalism, it adjusts itself. You can have a perfectly functioning economy that supplies only to the rich. The poor need basic necessities. If their pay is too low, they’ll just die off until labour scarcity drives up their market wages. A large middle class creates stability, but an economy doesn’t “need” a middle class.
I guess quality children are needed, but we don’t have a situation where nutrition is lacking. You could have school meals.
Liberalism works. It’s just unpleasant. You encourage corruption due to the wealth gap. People become willing to do anything to get out of poverty. So, it has its problems. However, it does work. No one might be willing to defend a classically liberal society though if too miserable.
I lived most of my life in a social democracy in Europe, Germany, to be exact. I am aware how the philosophy of socialism has been demonized in the USA. Neoliberal economics are destroying Germany. The strong working middle class is being destroyed by the most bizarre politics imaginable. The sabotage of the NS pipeline did its part too, the dealing with millions of refugees from the ME adds to it. Imagine, the German allies blew up the pipeline moving German industry to the US. These are crazy times, western democracies are digging their own graves following their own oligarchs, the people work for the war profiteers for less and less pay and benefits.
Socialism made labor laws and benefits possible, including affordable healthcare, SS, free college education, paid leave and maternity leave, and more, things we don't know exist. But the billionaire leeches don't think working people deserve free education or a 40 HR work week, all of our social progress is the result of working people fighting for it. The socialism of the NEW DEAL helped people out of the Depression, it saved capitalism. Socialism was and is social progress but the money elite tells us we are wrong, they know what is best for us.
Nothing is perfect, but we need people who care to make things better, we have rich people who get richer by destroying nations and tell us that it is the best for us, the UKRAINE found out the hard way, the people voted for peace and the Minsk agreements but the neocon Biden said no. To hell with the people, that is not good government, that is our real problem.
Socialism stands for a more just and fair society, which includes livable wages affordable health care and higher education, paid leave and so on, socialism build more humane societies, it is not perfect but neither is capitalism.
The rich keep telling us we do not deserve it, they know better than we do what we deserve. The best jobs are union jobs, business is not perfect either.
Germany lacks nationalism. So, I don’t know why people would care about it. That lacking just leads to a society where everyone is out for their own. The “socialists” seem to want a “workers of the world unite” globalism where the entire world is saved at once. That’s too large. Also, due to transience and migration, people just live together, as strangers, without any bonds. We have cameras and mics everywhere keeping us in line, but we’re often strangers.
Similarly, the US buys everyone in Germany and influences society through NGOs, the mass media, and mass culture. You can’t resist. You have foreigners (Americans) who don’t even live there telling you what to do.
I’m not a fan of the 40hr work week. You could pay out UBI, but if you limit hours, people will struggle to make enough. I’m not a fan of the New Deal, etc. You’re covering too many topics at once. In the US, little people (conservatives) often fight their battles and lose. The bad people tend to win. So, fighting can seem good, but it rarely leads to a win. The bad guys just take and pillage without end.
One thing I’ll just highlight is that socialism of course means state ownership. You can have some regulations without the state owning something. We obviously don’t disagree on that.
Ron Unz argued for a higher minimum wage, that it wouldn’t cause significant unemployment. That’s not really socialism. It does create problems, some unemployment and it hinders small businesses who are already squeezed by the rest of society. UBI is better.
Unions can be positive, but they usually drain society. It can be good to have a union job, but it’s expensive for everyone else.
The rich aren’t always bad. Liberalism works somewhat. The primary problems in the US right now are how Big Pharma profits, big education is often too expensive, hospitals lack competition or something and are too expensive, medical schools especially cost too much, the military is way out of control, utilities lack competition and can’t construct anything under budget, governments can’t build rail projects etc. under budget, and the rest of the economy is squeezed by these things. Big Pharma, for example, pressures new expensive drugs over old reliable ones.
Many of those expenses are driven by people with good jobs who don’t do much and don’t deserve their jobs. You need a market to squeeze the bad people out to reduce costs for the rest.
One irksome thing is how real estate people make a set amount on sales. It’s like this added tax. They get a good living, but it costs the rest of us. They wouldn’t starve if the market set the rate.
You could replace Socialism with Capitalism. Capitalism has an upper class of very rich people who own the government and write their own laws to protect their interests. That is what Democracy has become, Government of the Oligarchs by the Oligarchs for the Oligarchs. There lobbyists write the laws to protect their interests. Wall Mart and Amazon and chain stores and chain restaurants destroyed small business, they could not compete. Their private wealth is their power, the donor class is funding elections and picks the candidates in the primaries.
Big landowners wrote the constitution, that is why we have states like Wyoming and Montana with two Senators each just like NYC with a population of 8.8million. I live in a red state were the winner takes all the electoral college votes. Big landowners owned slaves and held on to slavery, but the Northern industrialization needed cheap labor, that was a big factor to help end slavery. For knew, he need customers for his mass produced cars, that meant to pay the workers enough to buy the products they produced, mass production needs mass consumption. Just MHO, is is a fascinating subject.
No matter what we think about economics, we work to live, not to live to work, quality of life, the social factor we can’t ignore. We can’t go back to child labor. It took the labor of thousands of people to pay for Musk to be am astronaut for a few minutes.
Any economic system must be regulated, deregulation and greed creates a cutthroat economy and society. Nations need leaders with integrity and ethics , this is sorely missing.
No, there are more options than that.
What you’ve been taught is one must choose one bad system or another and be appreciative of a bad system because the alternative is worse.
I don’t have faith in such a dichotomy. Modern political science is akin to a religion.
Regarding slavery, if it had been profitable in the North, it would have remained. It spread everywhere it was profitable and remained until new powers no longer found it useful. Similarly, a cannibal system of brutal conquest spread in Polynesia which could outcompete all alternatives until society changed from outsiders.
I am old enough to understand the indoctrination starting in school. History, as little as they teach, is all about glorification of the nation, freedom and democracy and glorified and capitalism pure.
I learned to try to make the best out of what you have. Both systems have good and bad points, pick the best from both systems, that is what European Social Democracies did, some were more successful than other nations. Much depends on the conditions and history of all the different nations and circumstances.
I completely agree with picking the best, what works.
We just don’t agree on WHAT IS BEST.
Well, I also disagree with how you see everything as capitalism vs socialism. I often prefer third options.
I understand, I just don’t see that third option. Would it be a free social market economy? The European way? Wars are business, “profits rise but the people go down”. (Rosa Luxemburg)
You empower citizens with free speech obviously but also rule of law and gun rights. However, another essential is property ownership. You can’t have a society where a tiny few own everything. However, some will merit riches.
If you create a pleasant society, then people will voluntarily risk their lives for it. People also fight for church and state/nation (meaning ethnicity) and other symbols. These can be abused or not.
Elites are tricky. I suppose conservative elites, such as feudal lords, aim to preserve the society that empowers them. So, you want them to preserve and rely upon the citizenry.
The old concept of citizenship used to exclude slaves. Nowadays we have nominal citizens who are akin to slaves in some respects.
Regarding third ways, capitalism trends towards monopoly, and socialism is the central management of most of the economy. The two aren’t that different since capitalists often don’t manage their private property directly now. They have managers who are powerful.
A third way tends to be the opposite or at least something significantly different from capitalism-socialism, which can sometimes be seen as part of a similar construct.
One problem with society is propaganda works. Ideally you want an honest, open society. However, such isn’t competitive in many situations.
It’s similar to cannibalism in the Pacific Islands or slavery in agricultural societies: What is competitive is often not what we wish to be competitive.
Order is often better than anarchy; so, you might be in a situation where you’re defending something metaphorically akin to cannibalism. I obviously don’t see cannibalism as advantageous now.
I may misunderstand your metaphorical point,
In my understanding ruthless NEOLIBERAL economics are the closest to cannibalisms as I understand it.
Socialism humanized brutal capitalism.
There’s no utopia, and it can be difficult for the good to compete with evil. Also, if we strive for utopia, we can destroy the best possible society.
Separately, a bad society can lead to a better society and vice versa just because things tend to balance.
You say you don’t understand economics; so, I’ll explain economics: High oil prices cure high oil prices by drawing in investment, leading to a surplus. Low oil prices cure low oil prices by driving out investment, leading to a shortage.
High oil prices kill producing energy dependent industries. Remember they tell us that raising the minimum wage is bad for the economy, makes business uncompetitive? Where is the logic, production is the basis for well paid jobs, not serving hamburgers. The hamburger prices went through the ceiling but not the minimum wage for the kid flipping the burgers. Industry followed outsourced to cheaper labor.
I hate to say it, but I believe that ruthless neoliberal economics are killing the working middle class. Paying more to fill the tank to get to work and stagnating wages is like a punch in the stomach for working people.
In Germany high oil prices destroyed the national economy and with it the EU. Biden succeeded to destroy the leading European economy. That is a fact.
Well, I meant within the oil market. Germany needs nuclear energy.
Even if Germany subsidises oil prices, lowering them, the global oil market responds to prices.
Germany had agreements with Russia and the US did not like that is why the insidious US Biden regime blew up the pipeline. The German people decide the kind of energy they buy and what is best for them and their economy and environment not the neocons in Washington. They had business contracts with Iran and Trump broke valid unilateral contracts between Iran and the other nations, including Germany. Germany is still occupied by the USA. Manipulating public opinion can go only so far, the European people start realizing they were being had by their treasonous insidious governments and the USA.
Um Germans are seen as Nazis. Everyone uses and abuses them. Germany licks DC’s boots. The only ones who resist are in that far right party y’all want to ban. Germans are like Palestinians but less respected.
I’m technically part German as part “English.” So, I don’t think I’m better. I just find it absurd that Germans could ever be in charge of anything. Eventually there will just be some EU state. Germans will probably be put at the bottom of some affirmative action hierarchy for being Nazis.
Germany lost two world wars, and Germany is still an occupied country, the present coalition is a corrupt bunch of opportunistic politicians out to fill their pockets, the same people who put Trump and Biden in power in the USA did the job in Germany and other EU nations. Big money, insane criminals are ruling the democracies in the EU and NATO nations, Jan 6 was an inside job like a failed regime change in Venezuela. I do know a little European history.
The Israelis and Americans will take that position now.
It is amazing how Americans made enemies out of allies, not only in Europe.
It makes me sick just because I’ve watched as the US is behind or partly behind so many bad things. The Soviet Union was also behind many bad things, like Mao and poorly managed Soviet projects.
Had Germany won the war, and it never likely could have defeated Russia, it would have done new bad things. But I dunno that it would have been worse. We just see bad things everywhere.
I’m a conservative and a nationalist, traditionalist. So, I have the biases you’d expect. But I don’t like capitalism, nor socialism.
It’d be interesting to see a museum dedicated to every war crime committed or indirectly influenced by the US. I wonder how many millions that would be. You could do one to New World Europeans, and that would surely top whatever Germans are accused of.
After the South lost, Sherman marched up and genocided plains Amerindians. I mean, Hitler got his ideas from the US. That’s why they didn’t work well in Central Europe. They weren’t designed for Europe. Nordicists don’t even see all those Germans as necessarily Nordic… It’s like Ukrainians fighting the Russians, makes no sense.
I didn’t mean to bother you btw. I just think it unfair how Germans are treated. No one guilt trips the Turks over the Armenian genocide.
Germans would do better in BRICS.
It wouldn’t be bad for Germany to subsidise oil prices, for cheap gasoline, diesel or whatever. The market would work fine in that situation. It would just be expensive. The US is different from Germany. The US, for example, produces shale oil.
Russia and Germany have honest and fair business ties, but Anglo-Saxon will block any relations between Russia and Germany. To break the back of the German Bismarck Reich was the goal of the first WW. The UK and the US two no continental European nations were Germany’s real enemy, just as now. They are the real enemy of the continent, not Russia.
The US is selling expensive bad for the environment American fragging oil To Germany. Subsidizing the energy of an industrial nation like Germany is backstabbing the economy, Who and where doe the economy produce the revenue needed to fund the insanity? the US DESTROYED the German economy, like they did Japan and are prepared to destroy the Chinese and Russian economy, that is what ruthless neoliberal economics are about, they will destroy any nation, like Venezuela now. Maduro was elected BY THE PEOPLE, but Venezuela has gold and oil resources the American criminal robber barons want, they want regime change what the y call a free and democratic dictator serving the USA. The American ruling elite is as evil as it gets, no excuse for them.
Subsidizing energy is good for the economy and subsidizing health care and education is bad for the economy ? Capitalism v. Socialism.
I mean, subsidising anything can be good or bad. I thought you were calling for subsidies. I tend to want UBI to subsidise everything.
I said before, Germany needs nuclear energy. I didn’t blow up the gas pipe. I don’t want sanctions on Venezuela.
Germany built its economy with trade protections, but the US owns it due to how Germany is “open.” It’s truly amazing that Germany destroyed its own economy for the US. Germany had to pay reparations. Germany is hated and blamed. I’ve seen so many Germans bullied for being “Nazis.” They try so hard to be accepted, and they blow up their own economy. Now, Israel is just genociding the Palestinians. I expect Germany to be somehow blamed. We already have pro-war German Greens demanding that others be killed for the US. In 20 years, Germans will need to pay reparations.
Profits aren’t always bad, for what it’s worth. There’s often a first mover advantage before competition crushes profits.
Even with the US outsourcing jobs, that empowers foreign workers.
There’s often a good and a bad to every policy.
Profits is part of business and greed is human, some people want it all, never get enough.
There is a social component in economics. People work for a living and not just for basics like food and shelter, they want quality of life too. There must be a balance between the need for profit and the need to have a decent life. Neoliberal economics tent to be ruthless in order to increase profits, they ignore ethics and morals They expect others to pay taxes to fund education and health care and infrastructure without which they could not produce and do business. They oppose any regulation, exploiting labor as much as possible.. Individual wage earners can’t negotiate the price for their labor in big companies., They NEED labor unions and the right to strike to fight for their interests their quality of life, fair labor contracts, the social component .
Outsourcing was done for higher profits to cheaper labor markets and to hell with the people who had worked for them for many years, the corporations are really disconnected from the local communities, they fund foundations to look good to the public and then they object to pay taxes to fund education which trains the educated labor force they need. China became a powerful competitor, time to destroy their economy to stop the competition, Japan and Germany have been cut down to size, China comes next and Taiwan after China. As a nation we don’t invest in people, that is why we can’t compete, it is all about profit in our neoliberal economy. Profit ueber alles.
My apology for the long reply. I got carried away.
Unions aren’t usually needed. Outsourcing helps the new workers. If the US doesn’t blow their economy up, it grows from outsourcing.
Ford was praised by Communists in Russia at the time, btw.
However, you aren’t appreciating my comments on him. He didn’t need to produce for a middle class. He could have produced for the rich. I get that mass production of cars needed customers, but there’s no an overall *need* for that.
I’ve studied political science a bit. You’re not appreciating what I’m saying. A wealth gap leads to instability. That is the primary problem with it. It likely leads to corruption too and to a reduced desire to defend it.
I’m not in favour of full deregulation of the economy. I’ve never worshipped the market god. However, I do believe in making the market god work for society.
I’m a nationalist. I’m in a different camp from what you’ve been taught. The anarchist mod Knapp seems to have some understanding of nationalism, which is why he believes so strongly in destroying it. We see the dangers of nationalism in Ukraine, with the West Ukrainians dehumanising others. However, it has positives too if the warring ever ends.
I think I understand you, where we might differ is how to improve. IMO it is the epic battle between labor wanting better pay and working conditions and business wanting to give less to increase profits. Ford agreed with basic facts based on the numbers, if you have mass protection, you must have mass consumption and that means wages for working people so they can buy and consume what they produce, the communists knew that too, they are not stupid, see China. Philosophy deals with economic moral and business ethics. It has been an epic battle between capitalism, all about more profit, and Socialism about better wages, food on the table and quality of life. No employer on his own raises wages if he doesn’t have to.
Nationalism can easily be manipulated by propaganda to become narcissistic, I don’t think that is what you mean when you are proud of your nation and country, it is not the same as believing to be better than the others. Germany has a proud history, there is much more than the Nazi time and people are proud of it. The Zionists should open their eyes and see they are not better than the Palestinian people. Supporting genocide as our leaders are doing has already destroyed the US reputation, it will take a long time to repair the damage.
I know nothing about economics, but I do know, without the government building the infrastructure, maintain a legal system, regulating orderly business, provide public education and a healthcare system, we would be third world too. Taxpayer money used by the government provides the infrastructure for business. Business needs an educated and healthy labor force a good government would know and invest in people. Our governing elite is chasing money to fund their reelection and wars on other continents but not for education and health care and public services, like public transportation.
I AM PROUD under Bismarck and pressure from the social democrats Germany was the first nation providing low cost health insurance for workers and their families. The cradle of socialism was Germany, that is something to be proud of. Demonization can’t change that, Socialism is progressive.
GK Chesterton referred to it in his “Patriotic Idea” essay as a “chorus of superlatives.”
China has a lot of poor people. It produces for the world until it’s rich enough to produce for local consumption. Then it’ll have a large middle class.
China has lifted some 800 million out of poverty in the last 20 or 30 years and a population of more than one billion. That is a great accomplishment while in the US poverty increased, neoliberalism is shrinking the working middle class. That is what people who know China, who live in China and independent economists report. China has an educated population and working infrastructure and a competitive economy. That is why the West needs a war in the Pacific, the US, an ally of Germany is deindustrializing Germany and with it the EU, China is not their enemy , the irresponsible US leadership is their enemy.
Trade is the primary issue there. Protectionist trade attracted investment to China. Germany needs cheap energy.
I think cheap labor attracted the American investment, China had its own early industrialization experience and learned fast how capitalism works, they are fast studies and still have a communist party. They learned from past mistakes. Germany had cheap energy and its ally the USA ended that. Anglo-Saxons worked to destroy the competition the Bismarck Reich created. To destroy German competition was one big reason why the non continental European powers UK/USA were involved in WW I, without them it would have been a limited regional conflict.
Trade is about attracting investment. Research advances happen where manufacturing happens. So, China will get ahead then hide its advantages. Then, it might dominate.
Workers will suffer at first and work long hours, but they’ll suffer to build the domestic industry, for the future. Later, everyone benefits.
So, you sacrifice to build; then you reap the benefits and consume. You attract foreign investors; then you save up to buy capital yourself.
Cheap labour is only part of it. Skilled labour and an honest economy are only part. You need trade protections, at least for a society the size of China.
What you say is exactly the kind of effort big money made to demonize socialism by deliberate disinformation. Socialism is a philosophy, it aims to make society more fair and just. Without the input of socialistic thought we would still live with child labor, without retirement, affordable healthcare, public education, paid vacation, and so much more.
Social democratic societies are the best in history. Socialist and Communist thoughts were defamed because big money wants to keep labor down in order to keep wages low and exploit labor, the problem is that then the working people can’t buy what the produce, that is why we need credit cards with high interest rates and why we have a high poverty rate. As they say, money makes the world go round.
People suffer for a long time, but there comes a time when they rise and revolt, revolutions are always for bread and butter, that was true for the French and Russian revolutions. Our oligarchs are the are the new Bourgeois Nobility. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property is his palace, not in good taste but he has his palace to show how wealthy he is, really a kitsch-palace.
DimoRats are the master manipulators of elections having illegally stolen the 2020 Presidential election, installing a senile mentally ill angry Joey Biden in the White House!
MAGA bullshit.
GFY!
Democracy means never having to recognize the results of a country's elections if it means you can't profiteer from their vast oil reserves. Thus Venezuela can never enjoy democracy.
Sanctions drive Latinos north while dimwits call for border controls and corporations cheer cheap labor that fill US jobs.
So true.
Yea, the system is to have one mixed polity, the US, on top that brain drains the rest of the world. Ah, we’re not always getting the best.
Illegals are sometimes abused…
Those who escape US drug cartel suppliers and US sanctions are often semi slave labor used to support giant corporatist agriculture that buys the land and squeezes unemployed US citizens into cities and low paying jobs.
They have some benefits in that they sometimes don’t pay taxes. And I guess they’re provided with room and board. But they clearly get mistreated. It’s horrible how it’s completely normal for the women to be raped on the way here. They just take birth control, like it’s some expected thing… No big deal if they suddenly get pregnant with a stranger’s child, whom they then raise! And abortion isn’t as simple as people think if that is an option. You actually don’t always know you’re pregnant until sometimes rather late.
The American ruling class is about as treacherous as it gets.
Some of the people complaining about the migrants/illegals/immigrants are also the same ones advocating for regime change, wars, and sanctions that force desperate people to relocate.
I try to tell them this, but they dont get it.
Don't want to get it?
Who cares if Venezuela isn’t a sacred democracy? Why should anyone anywhere care?
The greedy energy corporate money-bags do care about possible lost profits. That is their only value, oil and money.
Venezuela could always nationalise assets again. There’s nothing wrong with outside investors investing in Venezuela provided they don’t then run the society. Investors just seek a return on their investments. Venezuela needs a self reliant economy that is sanction resistant. It shouldn’t struggle to acquire toilet paper or food. Oil can fund a pursuit of autarky.
You are so right, there is no reason why private concerns can’t sign fair and square business deals with nations. But some people want more, they want to control the the resources.
Oh, absolutely. The US wants an open society it can influence. It’s amusing to see North Korea struggle to keep out South Korean tv shows and pop culture. It’s difficult to keep outsiders out.
It’s amusing, because US conservatives tend to want to be left alone. However, the primary resistance we see in the world to central power is from small socialist states that keep it out.
We think of NK as unfree, but it resists. Similarly, we think of Russia as less free; but its media is more informative, and it seems tolerant of those who keep out of its way.
Bill Clinton calls resources "our interests".
Frank Luntz must have been Bill Clinton’s instructor. That boy was a quick study.
Let's see, Allende in Chile, Mossadeh in Iran. There is more. We turn our attention to Africa for the lithium.
Afghanistan has lithium and Libya oil, now Russia is a hard nut to crack. Biden took too big a bite, a popular leader of a nuclear super power would be the first regime change of that kind. He will be badly disappointed before he cr**ks. It would enhance his legacy in the history books, Putin is likely to make it, Putin the Great, Trump could give it a try.
This would be the same US in which the 2020 presidential tallies went missing for weeks in GA and PA?
MAGA Bullshit.
Send in Victoria Nuland!
… Eliot Abrams and the old Central American hands … get out Bill Casey's torture manuel and death-squad strategy …. Oh now, this is the stuff they truly love! The USM war cry "FUBAR forever!"
You are too funny!!! Thank you!!
She beats the stupid Bolton, she would find a replacement for that Guaido guy.
Mai 2023
"How did Juan Guaido, Venezuela's self-declared interim leader, end up alone in the Miami airport, carrying only a backpack, seeking protection from persecution in his home country?"
I wonder, is he still available? The people elected Chavez and Maduro and won, but the US ruling class can't accept the people's choice. They decide which candidate people may elect.
For years, we were after Chavez.
and failed over and over again, assassination attempts included.
With a tank full of warm milk and a truckload of Crispy Kreme donuts. Keep it away from her.
USA accuses Venezuela of "election manipulation"? They should know! Everything this misadministration accuses others of it is TEN TIMES more guilty of itself!
The ruling useful idiots in DC always scream and call it manipulated elections if their pick loses, then they gear up for sanctions and regime change for some RW brutal dictator serving American interests and tell the whole world it is all to benefit the people to bring freedom and democracy to the people. Another failed state, a gift from the freedom loving US of A.
We have interfered in 81 elections, one way or another. 81!
Are you confused with the 80 assassinations we've attempted or completed? I'm pretty sure we've inferred in more than 81 elections 🙂
The US hegemon leading, the Europeans and all Western democracies sanctioned Venezuela for years now for one reason only, to break the economy and destabilize the nation and then say look how incompetent the government is, the economy is a disaster, the government is bad.
In the eyes of our ruling elite they know what is best for the people in Venezuela. So say the vicious robbers of the wealth of other nations.
Western values, neoliberal economics, freedom and democracy is all it takes to prosper, to create fair and just societies with no poverty to speak of. Freedom and democracy are the blessings to bring prosperity, it is all it takes. So the deceptive elites tell the people.
It will be the historic legacy of the USA.
… And Venezuela accuses US of election manipulation be voting suppression…!
Dear God, these people are nothing if not predictable.
People in Venezuela better not protest the election or else they'll be thrown in jail as "insurrectionists".
Remember Sisi ? Mahmud Abbas?
Venezuela is still on the books in Washington for a long overdue regime change, going back to when Chavez was first elected. Normal American politics, nothing new. For some reason the people went in the streets demonstrating for the elected president. How unfair to the American people, they know what is good for the people in Venezuela better than they do.
That is the American money elite knows best what is good for you.
American oligarchs are the greatest danger to the blue planet. Their greed and megalomania is starting WWIII, look at the ME, JUST THE LAST TWO WEEKS, they believe they can settle on Mars or the Moon they have enough wealth to move there and enjoy life, demented people will not notice they are living on the moon.
The madmen are leading the blind. Literally.