#41
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: ~
to be honest, if i lived in venezuela i'd join the PSUV.
#42
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: ~
what are some good books to read about venezuela, mademoiselle march
#43
Post rating: ~

Francisco_Danconia posted:

Tsargon posted:

Francisco_Danconia posted:

hi it's me, miss march. hugo chavez is super cool and it's sad that he has cancer. he thinks he's dying so things are pretty serious! cristina fernandez is super cool and she has cancer too but she'll probably be okay. ask me things about these super cool people and maybe i'll make an effortpost or something iuno. there's a chance i'll be in venezuela for a year soon so you can ask me about that too

if hugo does die who will succeed him / are they cool or not / is the chavez coalition stable enough to withstand his death without falling onto the road more traveled*



*the capitalist road

unless diosdado cabello/godgiven hair is actually a coupist - which is a genuine possibility - the pretty natural course of events shouuuuld be that nicolas maduro becomes president in october, despite massive financing for the opposition as usual. nicolas is prepared, i think - i've met him - former bus driver, very educated, very competent. cabello could also become president, but it's difficult to say what's going on with him.

they will probably try to pull a gaddafi on nicolas maduro, and it will probably not work. hugo is also a colonel, so mutiny in that department is unlikely, and there are lots and lots of well-trained well-armed peasant militias as well. the psuv project is not comparable to previous democratic failures in that respect alone.



thank you for the answer, and when you say 'pull a gaddafi' do you mean a big armed attack with mercenaries and whatnot?

#44
Post rating: ~
So the other day at work I was talking to my colleague and I was letting him know how Venezuela has been doing since Chavez has been rockin it. He was like "hmmm interesting but i dont believe it" and lo and behold he decided to share an anecdote about the only person he met from Venezuela which happened to be the only thing he knew about Venezuela other than the fact that Chavez was a huge chav. So he told me about how he spoke to this woman from Venezuela had to change jobs after Chavez took over and that resulted in her having to take a 1.5 hour commute to work. But I was like yo buddy you're commute is only about 20 minutes shorter and then he tells me it's cool cause our roads are better.


edit: how come when I press the :coo!: smilie a quote thingy for getfiscal is automatically created in my post box

Edited by hey ()

#45
Post rating: ~
what.
#46
[account deactivated]
#47
desire be, desire go
Post rating: +
apparently the forum has gained consciousness and decided that getfiscal is cool
#48
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: +

mistersix posted:

apparently the forum has gained consciousness and decided that getfiscal is cool

a feature, not a bug.

#49
Post rating: +

hey posted:

he decided to share an anecdote about the only person he met from Venezuela which happened to be the only thing he knew about Venezuela other than the fact that Chavez was a huge chav. So he told me about how he spoke to this women from Venezuela had to change jobs after Chavez took over and that resulted in her having to take a 1.5 hour commute to work.

when i was in college i went out a couple times with a girl from venezuela and she hated chavez. she mentioned that that her family had a farm and i was like mine too! we had about 60 head of cattle it was a nice way to grow up, what was yours like? and she said oh i dunno but the village inside it is pretty small and i knew right then i was too far from home... i was too far from home

#50
[account deactivated]
#51
Post rating: +
haha chavez cited an obscure deleuze essay in an open letter to the u.n. once, he's basically the coolest person
#52
tardy on these heaters
Post rating: +

blinkandwheeze posted:

haha chavez cited an obscure deleuze essay in an open letter to the u.n. once, he's basically the coolest person



goytisolo too

#53
[account deactivated]
#54
[account deactivated]
#55
Chacabuco
Post rating: ~

discipline posted:

do you think the CIA gave them cancer miss march



probably but who cares (cfk has the kind you can poison someone with pretty easily, hugey doesn't)

#56
Chacabuco
Post rating: ~

Tsargon posted:

thank you for the answer, and when you say 'pull a gaddafi' do you mean a big armed attack with mercenaries and whatnot?


The People Rise Up Against Fallen Dictator's Hand-Picked Successor

(and then that yeah)

#57
Post rating: ~
I dated a half Venezuelan girl in college for a while and we'd talk about Chavez occasionally. She and her family fucking hated him, but they were bourgeoisie as fuck, so it was expected. Like... her mom would complain about how the poors have it easy there now lol
#58
Post rating: ~
do The Markets really rally when a competant leader dies, just cos of his label?
perhaps They are not all knowing...

*hears ominous thunder crack*

girdles_gone_wild posted:

I dated a half Venezuelan girl in college for a while and we'd talk about Chavez occasionally. She and her family fucking hated him, but they were bourgeoisie as fuck, so it was expected. Like... her mom would complain about how the poors have it easy there now lol



was that in the us? in europe its self-selecting cos they only let rich sudamericanos in

#59
Chacabuco
Post rating: +

xipe posted:

do The Markets really rally when a competant leader dies, just cos of his label?
perhaps They are not all knowing...

*hears ominous thunder crack*

girdles_gone_wild posted:

I dated a half Venezuelan girl in college for a while and we'd talk about Chavez occasionally. She and her family fucking hated him, but they were bourgeoisie as fuck, so it was expected. Like... her mom would complain about how the poors have it easy there now lol



was that in the us? in europe its self-selecting cos they only let rich sudamericanos in



how on earth is it "just cos of his label" lol

also, the college in which I may be enrolling - their political economy track is hilarious, the 2000 level classes are all very ordinary, generic, the same as at any north american university. you hit 4000 level, though, and the first class you have to take is "El Capital." gets worse from there, they're literally training marxist bureaucrats and don't care who knows

Edited by Francisco_Danconia ()

#60
[account deactivated]
#61
Post rating: ~

xipe posted:

was that in the us? in europe its self-selecting cos they only let rich sudamericanos in


America

#62
Chacabuco
Post rating: +

discipline posted:

it's like going to catholic school


in that they're brainwashing you with the necessary propaganda, with absolutely no reservations or compunctions about it, because it's the right thing to do, yes

#63
Chacabuco
Post rating: ~
every day i live in mortal regret that my username isn't francisco stankonia
#64
Post rating: ~

Francisco_Danconia posted:

how on earth is it "just cos of his label" lol



why would i give a fuck what the president calls himself as long as im making money?

#65
Chacabuco
Post rating: ~

xipe posted:

Francisco_Danconia posted:

how on earth is it "just cos of his label" lol

why would i give a fuck what the president calls himself as long as im making money?



how would his death not be good for private investment? tell me more about the neoliberal dictatorship of hugo rafael "hayequito" chavez frias

Edited by Francisco_Danconia ()

#66
Post rating: ~
you tell me! im only speaking generally; you seem to know the place (:
#67
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: ~
hugo chavez's market-oriented social-democratic politics seems like a good antidote to the obsolete socialism of the castro brothers.
#68
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: ~
someone said something nice about chavez at a trot meeting i went to and a few plants from other organizations stood up and starting droning on about how it wasn't a worker's state and how chavez was essentially capitalist and of course they were right but they were wrong to criticize chavez for it.
#69
Chacabuco
Post rating: ~

xipe posted:

you tell me! im only speaking generally; you seem to know the place (:



i'm really trying to understand your claim that there's something counterintuitive about investing in private enterprise in a country whose flirtation with left-wing politics might be ending?

like, in every failed socialist experiment-turned-neoliberal-lab, there's been money to be made from the financialization of the economy, the crackdown on labor, and - depending on how it's done - an (albeit temporary) strengthening of the currency and treating venezuela as the ussr in 1989 or chile in 1972 or whatever is a smart move from their perspective?

that isn't to say that public investment isn't a great thing that would make money for them if they wanted to engage in it (hell, the GDP of chile right now is about the same as cuba's, after everything - does that make cuba capitalist?), but the lure isn't on the same scale or in the same timeframe

trots call absolutely everything "state capitalist" which is a bullshit label and i don't think you can call the bolivarian project capitalist really (but i don't think you can call the prc capitalist either)

Edited by Francisco_Danconia ()

#70
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: ~

Francisco_Danconia posted:

i don't think you can call the prc capitalist either

#71
Post rating: ~

getfiscal posted:

someone said something nice about chavez at a trot meeting i went to and a few plants from other organizations stood up and starting droning on about how it wasn't a worker's state and how chavez was essentially capitalist and of course they were right but they were wrong to criticize chavez for it.



Did u throw them out for interrupting and being rude

#72
Chacabuco
Post rating: ~
droning about state capitalism is the height of politeness in trot etiquette
#73
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: ~
actually you're going to be surprised at this: it was a cliffite meeting where the cliffites were sympathetic to chavez! and the people who interrupted were mandelites, who don't believe in state capitalism but nonetheless consider chavez to be a reformist! topsy-turvy world we live in.
#74
Post rating: ~
Did anyone stand up and say that if anyone wanted to bomb a major public structure he'd totally give them some c 4, no judgements, just putting that out there, But if you werent a pussy you'd probably do it.
#75
Post rating: ~

Francisco_Danconia posted:

xipe posted:

you tell me! im only speaking generally; you seem to know the place (:

i'm really trying to understand your claim that there's something counterintuitive about investing in private enterprise in a country whose flirtation with left-wing politics might be ending?

like, in every failed socialist experiment-turned-neoliberal-lab, there's been money to be made from the financialization of the economy, the crackdown on labor, and - depending on how it's done - an (albeit temporary) strengthening of the currency and treating venezuela as the ussr in 1989 or chile in 1972 or whatever is a smart move from their perspective?

that isn't to say that public investment isn't a great thing that would make money for them if they wanted to engage in it (hell, the GDP of chile right now is about the same as cuba's, after everything - does that make cuba capitalist?), but the lure isn't on the same scale or in the same timeframe

trots call absolutely everything "state capitalist" which is a bullshit label and i don't think you can call the bolivarian project capitalist really (but i don't think you can call the prc capitalist either)



yeah its that perenial thing where public investment can benefit capitalist empires more than the people by locking in profit, absorbing costs etc, something like storing up fat for hibernation.

not that the society couldnt break out from that stage to a completely different direction, or that this applies to venezuela (cos idk about it).

i just think its better to focus on how states/groups/people etc actually operate, rather than what they say about themselves; obviously the markets disagree!

eres de venezuela?

#76
Post rating: ~

Keven posted:

Did anyone stand up and say that if anyone wanted to bomb a major public structure he'd totally give them some c 4, no judgements, just putting that out there, But if you werent a pussy you'd probably do it.



gadaffi did that, i dont think its hugo's style tho

#77
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: +
my brain is sort of weird because i have like five different meanings for "socialism" that sort of coincide.

like a socialist economy to me means an economy where production is primarily based on administrative units and where supply and price is determined by planning rather than competition. this is basically the anti-revisionist definition.

but like i admit that we can colloquially call an economy where state ownership is hegemonic but firms have some autonomy and goods are produced for consumer markets still "socialist", since that is the dominant form of production in states that called themselves socialist throughout their history.

even less than that, i think it is fair to call reformist governments that call themselves socialist and are oriented (in fact not statements) towards expanding the role of social ownership as "socialist governments". connected to this is a commitment to orientation towards needs, which includes expanding welfare state measures and such. plus maybe some consideration for democratic forms which extend worker control over the economy, although not as far as trots go with that.

china has largely disbanded their social protections, continues to dismantle state ownership, is entirely market-oriented, has no real democratic control over outcomes and so on.
#78
Chacabuco
Post rating: ~
the problem with labels like "bourgeois nationalism" or "third-world social-democracy" or "state capitalism" is that there's a huge difference between an oscar arias government, say, and an ortega or a gaddafi; they're very clearly on opposite sides of a split in terms of whether they are subservient to international capital or whether what passes for a bourgeois class in their country is subservient to the government and bureaucracy and maybe wants freedom through internationalism (a coup, intervention, shock), no different from a soviet black marketeer

evo morales is a tough call; he doesn't do a hell of a lot

to repeat myself a little, whether or not the bourgeoisie answer to anyone is for me what puts people on different sides of the equation. in iran they answer to the theocracy; in china they still answer to the party; in the ussr they only existed as a black market class that answered to the party; in libya, they answered to the central government, etc. chavez is clearly gunning for a society where the role of the bourgeoisie is that of subservience to the state and the bureaucracy, which is composed of people from working and peasant families. the less the bourgeoisie exists at all, the better, certainly, but the trajectory he's following is about the same as the one gaddafi did, which was successful - albeit with many hitches - for a very long time, made sense for an oil state, and was only "more social-democratic than socialist" in a very loose sense.

xipe, i still don't know what you think chavez "really" is, and i am not venezuelan
#79
Post rating: ~

Francisco_Danconia posted:

getfiscal posted:

what do you plan on doing in venezuela

i mean besides living in a gated community to avoid the crime-ridden nightmare that is modern caracas

studying biology and no

perhaps you are thinking of these creative young people out to change the world:




i want to make an effortpost on this video for people who don't speak spanish

"I wish I could fold Caracas up like a Polly Pocket, shake out all the people I don't like - hope they fall! - and stick it in my handbag, take it wherever, take it out whenever. Doesn't hurt to dream"

"Caracas is this city...where... if I die, they're gonna, like, bury me here."

"I want to be able to go out at 3AM and not get robbed. Well, I don't know if it's stupid of me, but I go out at 3AM a lot, and nothing's happened, but,"

"Venezuelans all have some kind of mental disorder... well, I'm Venezuelan, but I can't stand it..."

"Caracas is great. Except for the people."

it's gone viral - you can actually see right-wingers apologizing to chavists on the internet for these hipster fucks



Searched for some stuff related to this video and found a link to it on an english language chavista blog. In the comments section he mention that the "conditions in caracas were why he lives in Canada. What then followed was a debate among the guasanos on whether Canada was a socialist state.

#80
Chacabuco
Post rating: ~
the new labor law is stupid + shitty but there are bigger things going on and more at stake; that said, if they don't play their cards right they could turn into late libya sooner than anyone realizes (early libya would be fine, but it's much too late for late libya). the social-democratic shit could just end up being mostly nominal, but giving ground to the global anti-terror campaign was not the best move. i didn't care about the extraditions to colombia - swedish citizenship? really guys? - but acknowledging the international community is a losing game. fidel knows that

people had questions about argentina?

Edited by Francisco_Danconia ()