The Devil made him do it. Blame George Bush.

Hmmmm....where have we heard this before.....I know! another Liberal Rock Star: STALIN. We all know that "at least he meant well...."

There's a warning to the Obama Worshipers.

I would how the socialists will spin this one. Somehow you know it will be George Bush's fault. I wonder how long before the left in this country start trying to paint Chavez as a "right-winger".

The villains? Greedy farmers, counter-revolutionaries, capitalists, imperialists, etc. etc.

Venezuelans prefer large steaming piles of self-righteousness to actual food.

This is the usual phase one of socialist farming, phase two will be the mass trucking of urban "volunteers" to the countryside to "get the harvest in". Sit back and watch the death spiral.

That's so sad. It's such a beautiful country. 'Moderate Muslims, wherefore art thou?' is up at the top of www.darrellepp.com

Looking more and more like the economy Suzuki would like to impose on Canada.
Has all the right qualities, drastic drop in economic output causing mass food shortages along with thousands being jailed for disagreeing with the socialist doctrine.
Soozooki land would be such a wonderful place.

In other related news, $12 billion of Venezuelan assets have been frozen world-wide as Exxon seeks restitution. Senor Chavez nationalized Exxon's stuff, so Exxon is going to privatize some of Chavez's money. Seems reasonable to me.

Word to the wise Hugo, don't spit in Uncle Sam's coffee.

Well I can hardly wait to hear what he will say to the Canadian native leaders when he addresses them.

He'll say "Seize the means of production!" Speedy. That's who he is, a little Stalin early in his career. Once the food shortages really start to bite down, then you're going to see some of Kate's "bodies stacked like cord wood".

Yesterday he threatened to cut oil supplies off to the US if EXXON wins in court. Fat chance, he's dead without the revenues.

Unless he is willing to put the military out on the farms I suspect the farmers will find ways to deal with him.

In todays news:

"President Hugo Chavez on Sunday threatened to cut off oil sales to the United States in an “economic war” if Exxon Mobil Corp. wins court judgments to seize billions of dollars in Venezuelan assets."

He's likely bluffing. If not, Venezuela will suffer more than the US. Much of the low grade crude that comes from there cannot be refined elsewhere, as the US refineries are the only ones with the spare capacity that can handle the heavy sour dreck they pump.

Hugo is right on track for another socialist debacle. The country will be slower to descent into poverty due to the oil. It will descent into poverty nevertheless.

The totalitarians seem not to comprehend that profit is an essential and necessary part of economy. If there is no profit there is no economy. On the other hand they don’t need to worry about the proles because they, the totalitarians take care of themselves first.

The socialists have this idea that they are going to make it work. They never do because it is illogical. The idea of business is to make widgets to make money, if you can’t sell your widgets you are not going to make it.

In Hugo’s case, it is clear that a farmer has to make money in order to be in farming, if a farmer can’t sell the product of his labor for a decent price here, then the farmer will sell it somewhere else.

What Hugo is doing has bee done in Ukraine by Stalin. It has been done by communists in many countries in Europe; every time it has been tried it crashed. The sad part is that many people paid for this kind of regime with their lives.

Yeah, Let roll out the welcome mat for Chavez....Phil Fontaine wants to bring this nut bar to Canada.... Hope that our government steps up to the plate and deny his access. Chavez has been funding the indigenous people around the world, and promotes hate of the "whiteman".

Much like "I'm-a-dinner-jacket" went to Harvard(?), Chavez should come to Canuckistan.

Layton, Dion, May, Fontaine et al can meet and greet then get tarred with the fall-out.

Lev

Yes. I will add that profit is essential for any economy, even a communist one. Profit is a measure of whether an action produces something of greater value than the resources consumed. Without profit, the action depletes resources, and ultimately to nothing if continued.

Doug at 9:26 AM,
Not just the Obama worshipers, Hillary as well.

Take the "GUESS WHICH COLLECTIVIST SAID IT..." quiz and be amazed (and afraid, very afraid) how much BO and HRC sound like Lenin, Hitler, Pol Pot and Chavez.

http://www.thepeoplescube.com/red/viewtopic.php?t=1728

woodporter - agreed, profit is vital. As I was pointing out on the Reader Thread, dealing with the expansion of the Welfare State and its dangers, the socialist ideology is focused, incorrectly, only on one process in Life. Output.

That's the socialist ideology where 'everyone is entitled to the same standard of living, no matter their contribution to this standard'. The socialist understanding of life is 'monomial'. There's only one action: output.

Real life is triadic; there are three processes. Input, mediation, output.

Plant seeds: input
Transform seeds via soil, water, sun: mediation
Harvest: output.

The socialist ignores the work of input and mediation. This ignorance moves their view of reality into the fictional realm, where they assert that all it takes to obtain output is Ordering It To Happen.

Does Chavez think that by ordering more output, that it will appear?

The same thing happened in Zimbabwe, where Mugabe ignored the processes of input and mediation, broke up the industrial farms into individual sustenance plots of land - and destroyed the capacity of Zimbabwe to feed itself.

Stalin destroyed the Ukraine by moving against the input/mediation process.

Yes, output has to be more than sustenance, otherwise - there's nothing for future 'input'.

However, what stuns me, always, about the leftist socialist view, is their complete ignorance of and indifference to the vital first two steps in life: input and mediation. They focus only on the results and insist that everyone must have the same results. This moves them into the mindset of primitives, who rely on the gods and spirits to take charge of these first two actions.

I wouldn't get too smug.

60 % of the Canadian electorate support parties that believe that Chavez's Venezuela is a better model to follow than the United States.

Usually the thugs leading the Liberal Party have more finesse than Chavez, but they are all of the same cloth.

In case you aren't familiar with opposition leaders:

"Dion has said that his involvement as "an activist for the separatist cause" ended during a five-hour, rum-and-coke fuelled discussion with a federalist household while he was going door-to-door for the PQ, but he did not openly commit to federalism until much later. At the time of the 1980 referendum, his sentiments were neutral. In his own words, the 'no' victory left him "neither moved nor outraged. To tell the truth, I sensed no particular feeling" - wiki

"Duceppe studied political science at the Université de Montréal but did not complete his program of study. While attending Université de Montréal, he became the general manager of the school's newspaper, Quartier Libre. Duceppe later earned a "Bachelor of Arts" from the Collège Mont-Saint-Louis at essentially the CEGEP level. In his youth, he advocated communism, and held membership in the Workers' Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist). Duceppe later claimed that his three-year membership in the W.C.P. (M.L.) was a mistake brought on by a search for absolute answers [2]. However, during this period – which lasted well into his thirties -- he subscribed to militant Maoist ideology and was fired from his job as a hospital orderly for belligerent activities [3]. Duceppe even went so far as to intentionally spoil his 1980 sovereignty-association referendum ballot arguing that Québécois should instead focus their efforts on staying united to fight their common capitalist enemy[4]. Before becoming a member of the federal parliament of Canada, Duceppe worked as a hospital orderly and later became a trade union negotiator.

Duceppe is also known at one time to have been a Marxist." - wiki

If Lenin were alive, his doppleganger in body and mind would certainly be bin Layton - me

Duceppe was a hospital orderly? emptying bedpans before rhetoric.

I guess thats why he was a natural for a hairnet.

http://www.maxsmewsings.com/mt/archives/2004/06/most_disturbing.php

Lev, Woodporter - you are so right. Sadly, like the old USSR and Castro you can keep things going at a subsistence level for a long time. Here's the history lesson that our kids should be learning instead of the Marxist crap that's spewed unchallenged on campuses:

Reagan noted the depth of Soviet economic stagnation. "The dimensions of this failure are astounding," he said. "A country which employs one-fifth of its population in agriculture is unable to feed its own people... Overcentralized, with little or no incentives, year after year the Soviet system pours its best resources into the making of instruments of destruction."

The Westminster speech, one of the most important of Reagan's presidency, was denounced by the Soviet authorities. But what Reagan had described was no secret to some Communist Party officials. One of them was Gorbachev, then a high-ranking party official, who recalled in his memoir that he was familiar with the "disastrous picture" of Soviet agriculture -- millions of acres wasted, villages abandoned, soils ruined by pollution.

The rest is here.

The stupidity of the left is that they repeatedly pick the same failed schemes expecting different outcomes.

Sean Penn, Kevin Spacey, Naomi Campbell... call your office

Hugo needs another PR favour. Another clip of Hugo and y'all cavorting for Entertainment Tonight should do the trick.

"Nothing to see here. Venezuelan despot endorsed by Hollywood hollow-heads. George Bush still evil BTW"

Penny, the thing you have to remember about the Left is they don't consider these schemes failures. They made money, they got rich. That -other people- were ruined, starved, died, this is unimportant.

When you look at the history of the Left you can see why they keep doing the same thing, because although lots of people die the guys at the top get rich. Hugo Chavez has these policies because Hugo Chavez is getting stinking, filthy rich beyond his wildest dreams of avarice and so are his buddies.

They don't have beliefs. They have tactics.

Lets examine these numbers:

Venezuela GDP= $335 Billion (2007)

Exxon Mobile revenue= $366 Billion (2006)

Hugo is a twerp and his whole stinking socialist rathole cannot generate the revenue of one U.S based oil company.

Imagine two trains coming towards each other on the same track. They are still a long way off, but you can see that they are going too fast, and are too heavily loaded, to prevent collision. Disaster is inevitable if not imminent.

That is Chavez's Venuzuela.

I wonder if Chavez will allow evil, imperialist, American aid workers in to clean up the mess. Or will he prefer to have his people die to maintain the illusions of the Bolivarian revolution?

Phantom - I hear ya, but, don't leave the foolishness of the masses out of the equation - both Putin and Chavez got enough votes to put them in power and retain them. Even with a margin of election fraud, there was enough mass ignorance to deliver for them.

Here's a scary thought, I read an interview with some of the anti-Chavez college kids there who are very engaged in his removal, it's not socialism that they challenge, one of their most outspoken leaders is an avowed Marxist, it's just that Chavez is the wrong socialist. These poor kids wanting to do the right thing have no better context to create a better society than the Marxist garbage that monopolizes most of the world's campuses.

If Trudeau were still alive, I'll bet that he would take his sons to Venezuela to see where the "future is being made".

Then again, Hugo's farm policies are likely not far removed from those of the old NFU commies that support the CWB.

Chavez: The Other Mugabe

speaking of Trudeaus, who pays for Justin touring the country. the unelected uberspokesman for the unteraged? ja ja.

just practicing early facist words as used by the National SOCIALIST Party.

[quote]When you look at the history of the Left you can see why they keep doing the same thing, because although lots of people die the guys at the top get rich. Hugo Chavez has these policies because Hugo Chavez is getting stinking, filthy rich beyond his wildest dreams of avarice and so are his buddies.[/quote]

Phantom,
Yes! you are looking from the TOP side of the Socialist culture. The ruling class of all cultures are some how assumed to have a simular objective to that of the working class. NOT

ET has more brains than I have places but she does have a bottom to UP problem. The Elite Class in the UK had/have rules & customs but the working class had none... Flemish mostly. The working class were mere chattels.

When soon can venuszualia be freee of this tyrant and dump him out as quick as possible

I wouldn't get too smug.

60 % of the Canadian electorate support parties that believe that Chavez's Venezuela is a better model to follow than the United States.
and 100 % of hollywood types

philip shaw - sorry, but I don't get your point. The working class in any society have rules and customs; every group/class has rules and customs.

Phillip, under feudalism the lord had a responsibility to subjects. Later we had the idea that each man is sovereign and there are no subjects.

Marxism pretends both are true at once, to get the masses to go along with the program. Power to the People, and Fearless Leader is Looking Out For You. Nobody seems to notice the cognitive dissonance inherent in that. If I'm one of The People and I've got The Power, why do I need Fearless Leader looking after me?

The actual truth is that Fearless Leader is looting the treasury and building up the army that's going to kick The People's ass if they don't keep Fearless Leader happy. The whole revolution is a crock.

Smaller government, lower taxes, fewer laws. Hard to kill ten million people with a prescription like that.

I'm no farmer (though I've been told I dress like one), but "no land should be left fallow"? Isn't it important to rest the land every four years? And aren't you supposed to practice crop rotation? I'm afraid all this emphasis on corn for ethanol will result in plunging yields in the mid-west in a few years.

KevinB
"Isn't it important to rest the land every four years?"

Not really. If your moisture supports it, a piece of land can be continuously cropped in perpetuity. Land is summerfallowed in Western Canada solely for the purpose of moisture replenishment. Most cropland in western Europe, the eastern US corn belt and all irrigated ground is cropped every year.

"And aren't you supposed to practice crop rotation?"

This is important mainly for disease control. Some crops such as corn can be and is occasionally cropped continuously for many years. Other crops like potatoes should not be planted more often than every three years, better yet every 4 years.

"I'm afraid all this emphasis on corn for ethanol will result in plunging yields in the mid-west in a few years."

This is not realistic. Purge those fears from your mind.

KevinB,

Not a farmer either, yet I can see where impractical corn ethanol for fuels is a temporary comfort zone for governments and their military. A job and tax generator too.

The tide is building ever more quickly in favour of Battery, fuel cell compressed air and other motive fuels.

Modern dual rail and TDI diesel tech is reducing diesel fuel consumption by 50% for the same working output, saving national truck fleets Billion$.

Safeway and Walmart tractor fleets are only two of recent converts and you can*t miss the sudden rise in hybrid sales.

When all those new ethanol plants face demand decline, we, the US and Brazil especially, will have a lot of surplus gin to export.

Brazil is already nearing 85% ethanol vehicle fuel use. = TG

Link for all those wild views, and lots of branch links from there.

AutoblogGreen.com

= TG

Exxon vs. Chavez. No contest. Hugo is gonna rue the day he ever nationalized the oil industry. It may have sounded really good to the peasants at the time, but look at the current situation? The real issue is that they are a sea exporting country. A couple of small Naval destroyers and their country is ruined. Chavez is the victim of his own rhetoric. It is by the mere charity of the U.S. Government that he is even in power. There are BIG things in store for Hugo. Unfortunately, none of them are very good, for him. Grenada sound familiar? Panama?

Any wanna-be dictator in the western hemisphere better be a quick study of history. Bluster and hubris is a sure path to irrelevance, possibly a prison or worse. Be careful who you make enemies with. The USA will only tolerate Chavez up until, and before, he actually causes real harm. Then is is yesterday's news. He may have some oil....but he is easily removed. He better keep that in mind.

Thugo is just another communist asshole who is quite willing to drag his people down the socio-economic ladder to the lowest common denominator of a doomed society. They did it in the Soviet Union, in China and in Cuba. They tried to do it in Poland but the people rebeled and prevailed. You can never convince an extreme leftard that communism just does not work. End of story. In order to salvage Venezuela Thugo has to go. Hopefully there are "efforts" under way to make that happen.