Gustav's farewell

[Walker]

In addition to parrying irrelevancies, broken Venezuela also fell under the baliwick of the martyred Gustav.

Recent news clips reveal that the politicians and cops who make it on camera in Venezuela are fat, while citizen protesters are skinny.

Socialism in a nutshell.

The rest is details.

[ForCruxSake]

You.... appear to have not heeded my warning.... Adieu!

Given this is a tyranny and just because you've decided to annoy me I've also decided your thoughts aren't required either, *poof!*.

Back to Gustav: Why did Gustav get kicked? What warning did he not heed?? How did he annoy AMod???

[henry quirk]

Gus got kicked cuz he dared to question the notions 'all men are equal' and 'all cultures are equal'.

And, to be fair, he got kicked cuz he was a bit of a dick now and again.

So: don't gut sacred cows, and, don't enjoy it if you do, is the moral.

[henry quirk]

Yeah, I look forward to all the communitarian 'explaining away' of that horrorshow.

[henry quirk]

"totalitarian atmosphere of censorship"

That's a bit much, yeah?

[HexHammer]

Drama! Drama!

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Gus got kicked cuz he dared to question the notions 'all men are equal' and 'all cultures are equal'.

And, to be fair, he got kicked cuz he was a bit of a dick now and again.

So: don't gut sacred cows, and, don't enjoy it if you do, is the moral.

I don't think that's true. He was around for years. I would say it was more the propaganda and lying. 'Equal' doesn't mean very much unless the way in which it's being used is properly defined. He could have put up a reasonable argument that all humans are not 'equal', but as far as I can tell he never tried.

[henry quirk]

Mebbe so, veg.

[Walker]

Drama! Drama!

Correct, Hex.
- Drama can grab you by the throat and distort reality.
- Drama is why people act irrationally.
- Comedy is commentary upon the irrationality of drama.

What is the cause of the distortion?
- Self-clinging.
- You ain’t so special, but in the end you’re the last thing that is.

To believe that there is more, is merely an assumption.
- The assumption is made because for mankind, more has always been.

One day there will be no more.
- That will be the day or night of the last exhalation.
- Savor what follows those before the last, for transience is as a flower is, or is as what follows the exhalations of a transient is.
- However, savoring the meal does not negate the fact that seconds are an assumption.
- Each serving is new.
- Any atheist will tell you that.

In order to birth into existence here and now, upon this reading, one must be a medium.
- Here, the types of medium are finite.
- They are: various written or quoted words, music and other sounds, various visuals.
- Without these, existence of the last what was, is only a memory.
- A rose on the grave.

Death is always dramatic, we only become numb.
- … and so on.

[uwot]

Yeah, I look forward to all the communitarian 'explaining away' of that horrorshow.

Well, in a nutshell, Venezuela was using its oil wealth to create infrastructure and improve the living conditions of the people. Mineral rights are 'owned' by individuals and corporations in most of the rest of the world. The USA started a programme of fracking to reduce their dependence on Saudi oil. The Saudis responded by dropping the price of a barrel, to make their oil cheaper than oil recovered by fracking. The technology of fracking developed so that the Saudis (a family which owns the oil rights of most of the peninsular, kept in government by the US) couldn't raise the prices. Venezuela, having invested on the strength of the historic price of oil, suddenly didn't have the resources to maintain their commitments. All because insanely rich individuals are quite content to fuck entire countries up the arse.

[Walker]

Yeah, I look forward to all the communitarian 'explaining away' of that horrorshow.

Someone in Venezuela screwed the pooch, philosophically speaking.

The rest is excuses.

[henry quirk]

"insanely rich individuals are quite content to fuck entire countries up the arse."

So, the poorly run, philosophically deranged, Venezuelan government has nuthin' to do with it? It's all the dem debbil capitalists fault?

[uwot]

"insanely rich individuals are quite content to fuck entire countries up the arse."

So, the poorly run, philosophically deranged, Venezuelan government has nuthin' to do with it? It's all the dem debbil capitalists fault?

More than happy to engage in a conversation about "the poorly run, philosophically deranged, Venezuelan government". What is your case?

[henry quirk]

"More than happy to engage in a conversation about "the poorly run, philosophically deranged, Venezuelan government"."

Well, I'm not in-forum enough these days to make a decent troll attack, much less have a conversation, but we can do a little back n forth if you can put up delays.

#

"What is your case?"

Consider...

V has oil out the wazoo...big bucks were flowin' in to the country for a long time...The gov, by way of Chavez, didn't do shit to save a dime of it.

V has a fine hydroelectric power system...so fine V coulda sold surplus power and squirreled some that money away for a rainy day...Chavez, of course, didn't do that.

Chavez 'nationalized' (took over) a sizable chunk of the private sector (promptly runnin' that chunk into the ground).

V has set price controls (discouraging innovation [if I can't, by edict, profit, then why the hell should I try?]).

The new fella Maduro(sic) has done nuthin' to change things...he makes things worse, in fact, by reworkin' the gov in a way that -- surprise, surprise -- favors the gov.

Now, I don't know that any of the above falls strictly under the umbrella of formal 'socialism' but absolutely all of the above falls under the umbrella of 'communitarianism' (which I consider socialism a strain of).

It is the unfortunate direction the U.S. is bein' pushed, poked, and prodded in (which is why I point to V when talkin' with local folks: 'is this what you want, here, in Louisiana?').

[Immanuel Can]

It is the unfortunate direction the U.S. is bein' pushed, poked, and prodded in (which is why I point to V when talkin' with local folks: 'is this what you want, here, in Louisiana?').

Cajun food...best thing ever.