President Hugo Chavez seized a unit of American food giant Cargill on Wednesday and threatened to take over Venezuela's largest private company, renewing a nationalization drive as the OPEC nation's oil income plunges.
Chavez's clash with the food companies, demanding they produce cheaper rice, came less than three weeks after he won a referendum on allowing him to run for reelection and marked his first nationalization in seven months.
"I warn you this revolution means business," said Chavez, whose government has struggled with lower oil income and minor food shortages this year.
The anti-U.S. president, who has nationalized swaths of the economy, is popular among the poor for pressuring companies to produce cheap goods and for government programs that provide subsidized food in city slums.
You know,there once was a time that the lefties would rush to the defense of Chavez when I published that bulldozer image. They're kind of scarce lately - as they always are when confronted with the real life consequences of their own ideology.
Sean Penn must be so proud.
Sean Penn is too stupid and vane to be proud.
Now Castro is the one who is proud of Chavez
"Now Castro is the one who is proud of Chavez"
When he is coherent enough to accomplish the feat.
The above statement can apply equally to Penn or Fidel.
When someone says they are a neo-Nazi, we all rise up to condemn him. Chavez has said numerous times that he is a Maoist, and that's just fine with Penn, Glover, Belafonte, and Sheehan.
Between the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, Mao was responsible for the deaths of perhaps tens of millions of Chinese (there are no accurate figures), and the imprisonment and displacement of many more. Mao was one of the great monsters of the 20'th century, and there is no justification for supporting a leader who models himself after him.
If Chavez turns Venezuela into a blood bath, much of that blood will be on his supporter's hands. There can be no excuse that they just didn't know.
Funny how the people of Venezuela grow more hungry, yet Chavez seems to get fatter by the day.
Now how could that be?
One wonders why Hugo Chavez thinks that his policy on food production and distribution will work when more or less the same policy, implemented by Robert Mugabe, failed so disastrously in Zimbabwe.
i agree fred....too true.....Penn is certainly vane and is an indicator of which way the sinistral winds are blowing..
Maybe all the lefties are down there helping him implement his programs?
John.....Yugo is SOOOOOOO much smarter than Mugabe,that he knows his plan will work.
"the Venezuelan leader,.... is now taking some unpopular decisions needed to stabilise his floundering economy."
Notice the quote from the MSM article. It actually implies that Chavez' actions will "stabilize" the economy, when any idiot would realize that they will bring nothing but economic chaos and starvation. The only criticism this MSM dope can muster about Chavez is that these policies may be "unpopular". What planet is this writer from?
http://www.tmz.com/2009/03/02/penns-co-star-imbecile-on-politics/
Maria Conchita Alonso, who co-starred with Sean Penn way back in 1988's "Colors," went off on Penn in a way we've rarely seen -- basically saying he's a moron when it comes to politics -- especially his support of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The Cuban born actress was raised in Venezuela and says Chavez is a "killer."
The video on the link is a treat.
"I warn you this revolution means business," said Chavez. Yes and we can see the results of rampant nationalization of business.
Let's see nationalization and socialism, yeah, yeah that's National Socialism the twin of Communism both political creatures of the left. Now we've got it.
Man it's not even noon, and already I want to pour some "Tempus" wine into my teacup, but I better not.
BTW Tempus Merlot 2005 from Mendoza Agentina is an excellent wine.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aK_0k.NhUmEU&refer=latin_america
Argentina, Farmers Reach Milk, Beef, Wheat Accord
By Eliana Raszewski
March 3 (Bloomberg) -- Argentina’s government agreed to raise the quota for beef exports and increase the supply price for wheat in response to demands from farmers for changes in the Latin American country’s agriculture policies.
Farmers have been pushing the government to lower a 35 percent levy on soybeans and remove restrictions on exports of all farm goods after commodities prices plunged and the worst drought in about 50 years hurt crops. The government and farmers will resume negotiations on March 10 as producers seek to reduce the soybean export taxes.
Cheers
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North
http://www.tmz.com/2009/03/02/penns-co-star-imbecile-on-politics/
Maria Conchita Alonso, who co-starred with Sean Penn way back in 1988's "Colors," went off on Penn in a way we've rarely seen -- basically saying he's a moron when it comes to politics -- especially his support of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The Cuban born actress was raised in Venezuela and says Chavez is a "killer."
The video on the link is a treat.
"I warn you this revolution means business," said Chavez. Yes and we can see the results of rampant nationalization of business.
Let's see nationalization and socialism, yeah, yeah that's National Socialism the twin of Communism both political creatures of the left. Now we've got it.
Man it's not even noon, and already I want to pour some "Tempus" wine into my teacup, but I better not.
BTW Tempus Merlot 2005 from Mendoza Agentina is an excellent wine.
Cheers
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aK_0k.NhUmEU&refer=latin_america
Argentina’s government agreed to raise the quota for beef exports and increase the supply price for wheat in response to demands from farmers for changes in the Latin American country’s agriculture policies.
armers have been pushing the government to lower a 35 percent levy on soybeans and remove restrictions on exports of all farm goods after commodities prices plunged and the worst drought in about 50 years hurt crops. The government and farmers will resume negotiations on March 10 as producers seek to reduce the soybean export taxes.
Cheers
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North
Vain.
grandad ?..i know full well....to save 'fred' any embarrassment i was making a play on words with 'vane'...'vain'....weather vane....'sinistral'(ie, left)winds......
and so on.
"The moves to tighten the government's grip over the food supply were criticized by the private sector and many economists who say the state distorts the supply chain and contributes to food shortages."
And you guys were complaining about the Wheat Board here in Canada. Wait until they get some new ideas from Chavez.
Sean Penn is an actor. Actors, and musicians, are for the most part not very smart, and in Seans case he has a double whammy, he has the same 45 degree forehead as Bill Mahr and other leftie morons. There is much merit in this analogy from a shrink years ago, just look at the politics of lefties and their not long out of the trees foreheads and you see the problem. Chavez is also not to bright, kind of like a Buzz Hargrove or other unionists, socialism is a failure, those who can't see that, no need to go on.
"They're kind of scarce lately - as they always are when confronted with the real life consequences of their own ideology."
Or, it could be that these "lefties" you refer to are not nearly as left as Chavez.
You're, what most would refer to as, 'right wing', but I don't see you touting virtues of Hitler.
Extremism on any end is bad.
Well, of course not! Hitler was a lefty
Ben, with all due respect to your rational thoughts, a little research on the internet will show you the majority of the visible Canadian left are in lockstep with Chavez.
Hugo Chavez fights big oil, sounds like somthing we sould of done years ago.
Peter
A strategy too brilliant to describe. Make sure you take ownership of all the problems. When there is nobody left to blame but your own failures and the nonsensical ideological framework into which you have tried to cram the real world, what's a girl to do? Counter-revolutionaries (i.e. "complainers") will be manifesting like ghouls in a Michael Jackson music video.
The Hugo Chavez Complaints Department will figure out how to deal with complainers: forced labor in agricultural "correction camps". When your selfish, capitalist body is spent, you will be rendered down into "People's Soap", as a final act of contributing to social justice.
Apparently the Dawg's tail is between his legs.
This Chavez sub human is only one step ahead of Barrack Hussein Obama.
Thanks heavens most right thinking Americans are armed.
yes
the National Socialist Party (nazi)was a lefty party.
It is a great mystery to me why in has painted as right wing unless you view the MSM socialist source.
Penn is certainly vane
You mean he tells us which way the wind will blow?
See, success breeds success.
Hugo took over the oil companies and drove foreign workers out of the country.
Then they only had about 10 nation-wide power blackouts, and many local ones last year.
So after success like that, how could Hugo afford not to nationalize the rice mills?
I wonder when he will announce the soup line practises?
Oh well, at the rate good old Hugo is sizing up, it won't be too long before some part of him explodes and saves his people a whole lot of trouble.
Sean Penn is an actor. Actors, and musicians, are for the most part not very smart
No, not: not smart, more like: differently smart. There's a big difference. Ya know, yin/yang thang, we actually need the liberals/artists. We need fantasy, else we'd go mad.
How come lefties always say Hitler was a rightie? They afraid to own up to what their ideas create?
Hitler and Tommy Douglas could have both written major papers on eugenics....oh..wait.
¡Ay Caramba!
It will all end in tears.
Or in a hail of bullets...
Ben, why do you insist on calling Hitler "right wing"? The man headed the, wait for it, National SOCIALIST party. One either supports freedom (capitalism) or tyranny (socalism, communism, fascism, etc.) I don't know of any Conservatives who espouse Hitler's views. As Zo so eleoquently states (see http://www.imao.us/ - March 3), Hitler and the "left" seem to share the same views on abortion, gun control, eugenics, nationalizing industry and socialized health care.
Instead of left-right political model, think of a sphere, where the core is comprised of the "government", and the remaining space represents freedom. The left-right extremist thing is a bogus construct.
uh Marko; capitalism can exist in tyranny or did you chose to pretend that China is still a true communist state?
I LOVE it when socialisms useful idiots bring up Hitler.
"when confronted with the real life consequences of their own ideology."
* Irony Alert *
I like to recount the looks on lefty faces when I correct them as to the political party Hitler created.
Seriously, ben, all chiding aside; ask yourself why you didn't know this.
Who's responsibility would it have been to clue you in on something this important, and why didn't they, or better yet who told you Hitler wasn't socialist ?
The funniest thing about supposed "Maoists"?
Even Mao himself didn't know what the hell Maoism was from day to day, much to the distress (sometimes lethal distress) of those under him charged with enforcing it.
I don't think this will help in his quest to get the oil companies to return. The industry is pretty close to tanked if you'll pardon the pun.
The difference is Me no Dhimmi is, I cannot hang any of my art in the Met or any other museum, my music is for local consuption only, with only divine intervention will I be on national radio, but morons like Sean Penn and George Looney, musicians like Annie Lennox or The Ditzy Chicks have a huge audience to mislead small sloped headed minions with their distorted view of reality and it will cause the failure in part of the system we now enjoy someday soon.
John Lewis: "will work when more or less the same policy, implemented by Robert Mugabe, failed so disastrously in Zimbabwe."
Mugabe's policies are working splendidly - if your name is Mugabe or if you're one of his cronies. The masses, not so much, but they were never meant to do well because happy, prosperous people are dangerous.
Oh, I agree, bartinsky. But at least the named invidividuals are selling to voluntary buyers, eh? They are not publicly-subsidized.
In fact, the thing that amazes me about these folks is that what they do is straight out capitalism which they hate so much! I think this is 'cos of, as Dire Straits put it, "money for nothing" guilt.
A form of cognitive dissonance eh? Being rabid capitalists while also FEELING that capitalism = exploitation, zero-sum-gaming.
But I get as pi88ed as every other conservative when they step outside of their their fantasy-supplying role and engage in public policy preaching.
"Hugo Chavez fights big oil, sounds like somthing we sould of done years ago.
Peter"
Peter are you a maroon?
"Conclusion: In other words, just one corporation (Exxon Mobil) pays as much in taxes ($27 billion) annually as the entire bottom 50% of individual taxpayers, which is 65,000,000 people! Further, the tax rate for the bottom 50% is only 3% of adjusted gross income ($27.4 billion / $922 billion), and the tax rate for Exxon was 41% in 2006 ($67.4 billion in taxable income, $27.9 billion in taxes)."
http://seekingalpha.com/article/63131-exxon-s-2007-tax-bill-30-billion
Companies like Exxon make positive contributions to the economy, and the social infrastructure; whereas, leftards generally don't pay any taxes, and they access the majority of social programs, while at the same time try to bite the hand that feeds them.
Get it through your head, if you want a larger piece of pie, you increase the size of the pie, you don’t shrink it and ask for someone else’s share. In your world companies like Exxon will just make their pie somewhere else, where the people that share that pie are appreciative, and the ingrates(leftards, YOU) starve.
Watch out when Chavez starts seizing farms. In the hands of Mao, Stalin, Kim, and Mugabe, this led to the greatest carnages of the 20'th century. War is not nearly as efficient as famine, for bullets cost money - lack of food costs nothing.
MND
I agree, artists are not stupid, leftists are. It is widely accepted that artists who live in fascist/commie/dictatorships are usually right thinkers. The want things like liberty and free speech so they can practice their craft(this is why they are often censored). Artists in the west are often on the public teat and actors more often than not have made their way up through nepotism, not talent. IMO these two factors and narcissism contribute to the leftarded POV expressed by the art crowd. The funny thing is, I suspect the pioneers in the industry would be ashamed by the behavior of actors/artists today.
Chavez is doing what all Marxists do. Expropriate the efforts of private business and make it their own. Then they milk it until it is completely dry. The Marxists themselves have no idea how to keep a business going or how to develop and maintain it...they only know how to "harvest" it. Once they have ruined one industry, they move to another, then another, then another until they have gone to all the sugar bowls in the house and have exhausted everything. Then the whole thing collapses. It has happened without exception wherever Marxism has been allowed to develop.
As for the discussion about Hitler, here is a quote of interest.
"We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions." --Adolf Hitler
(Speech of May 1, 1927. Quoted by Toland, 1976, p. 306)
"Hugo Chavez fights big oil, sounds like somthing we sould of done years ago.
Peter"
Peter are you a maroon?
Sorry can not resist to point out what wroong in this exchange..
and for the record Peter appears to be a socialist, not a moron, there seems to be alot of socialism going around so he is forgiven, probably borrowed a hemp hat or shook hands with an university economics professor, the good news is that we have a vaccine, it is called the election cycle and term limits.
Illiquid Assets says ""Hugo Chavez fights big oil, sounds like somthing we sould of done years ago.
Peter"
Peter are you a maroon?"
The answer is, of course, self evident. Yeah, Chavez fought "big oil"...and then he promptly ruined the industry in Venezuela. That is the pattern of Marxists. But, of course, now the idiot Chavez is begging western oil companies to come back. Chavez is an incompetent blowhard. Venezuela is spinning around in the toilet, going down like a corn studded turd. Zimbabwe II.
Should say:
"They want things like liberty..."
The poor vote for the leftists. Who knew?
"and for the record Peter appears to be a socialist, not a moron,"
Il
I don't see how you can establish dude’s a "socialist" and not a maroon from his comment. Fighting "Big Oil" is stupid, as I pointed out "Big Oil" is a major contributor to all economies. Hurt "Big Oil" and FCK yo'delf.
That being said, I wouldn't bet any money(even yours) that Peter isn't a socialist.
Sean Penn is too stupid and vane to be proud.
Posted by fred.
i agree fred....too true.....Penn is certainly vane and is an indicator of which way the sinistral winds are blowing..
Posted by: john begley at March 5, 2009 1:08 PM
Penn is certainly vane
You mean he tells us which way the wind will blow?
Posted by: Me No Dhimmi at March 5, 2009 3:06 PM
----------------------------------------------
Hmm, IMHO, me thinks, Fred and John were satirically relating to the Movie Milk and was just trying to tell us which way the Penn Blows.
Word is that the bailout for Chavez is currently on hold. The Federal Reserve isn't inflating the way it used to, and oil inventories are still piling up.
Give 'em some time, though. The signal for the Chavez bailout to begin in earnest will be the Chinese government, er, transferring their debt holding to the Federal reserve.
"Is it 1973 yet?"
Chavez's oil fields are rotting as he has not paid the service companies that keep them afloat. They've departed. The agriculture sector loathes him. No help there. Inflation is running 30% and we all know how price controls end. He's another socialist Sugar Daddy that will burn down everything around him as he implodes. It's a classic, another chapter in "poor" peoples' bad choices. Like Africa and Russia, a light bulb never goes off in figuring out why they are perpetually poor. The culture of poverty whether it's an urban ghetto or Venezuela is a study in bad habits, bad choices, feckless naivety, and an absolute failure to take responsibility for oneself. It's why the left loves that demographic and keeps them on their plantation.
I see mass graves in Venezuela's future. It's coming and the first time live bullets are fired big time on demonstrators it will be interesting to see the reaction of Useful Idiots like Sean Penn.
Kate, even the Lefties know Big Hugey has no fuel to run that bulldozer. The mass graves will be filled in by hand.
I look forward to the new picture of Chavez with a shovel sticking out of his butt.