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.
More here.
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.
penny….sean penn and all will just say the poor protestors got in the way of an army training session.OR.They will do the usual.Hide their pathetic heads up their a%$es and say nothing.
I think Ive been saying this since day one.
http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=6378b747-17cb-4e57-86aa-84b4cf2aa0eb
the US is successful on cheap inputs. its the basics of economics. high resources costs kill industry.
does one have to draw the basic supply demand curves for the obamessiah.
Is Hugo Chavez a marxist? I ask ‘cos I don’t recall his giving public seminars on marxism.
/ sarc. (oh, yer bad MND)
You have to laugh at the demonization of BIG OIL. As an industry, its return on equity (ROE), is relatively low; also earnings are very volatile. But of course to understand this, you’d have to understand bewildering things like “earnings” and “equity” and stuff. B-o-r-i-n-g. And you’d have to be able to distinguish headache-inducing concepts like “revenue” and “profit”.
Kathyrn makes a good point: We conservatives often pull our hair out with sentences like, “can’t they learn from the past” as if they are sincere, just missing some key knowledge. But, not really: they actually like mass-murder. It’s all one big snuff film which, one suspects, is something that stiffens Penn’s penis.
Everything would work as it should in Venezuala if only the US would cease their relentless attempts to undermine the Chavez government. I don’t know which is more amazing: the lengths to which the captialist elite are willing to go in order to keep the common man down, or the psychological contortions the people in here must undergo in order to defend them.
Exxon, which is the biggest of big oil is, I believe ,3% of world production. the really big oil is all government companies. Aramco, CNPC, Hugo and Co.
Leave it up to the good folks at the CBC!
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/02/26/f-rfa-watson.html
It begins:
“To say Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is a great communicator would be an understatement.
He is one of the best on the planet.”
Actually Peter is being sarcastic. Fighting big oil is something that we DID do a long time ago here in Saskatchewan. And it DID turn out badly. It has only been in past 5 or ten years that oil companies have returned after a long absence.
As an owner of a small trucking company in Calgary,we are feeling the effects of the price of oil. I’ve stated previously I will tighten my belt as this is what is necessary to slow down, if not bring down, Chavez, Ahmedingabat, Castro, House of Sauduption et al.
As a result people will suffer, he’s trying to force farmers to sell their product at a financial loss to keep food cheap. As a result many farmers have stopped growing crops, he then will seize their farms or force farmers to farm at a personal loss at gun point. To provide cheap food he’s rid the country of the middle working class, he’s running out of people to abuse to provide for his socialist utopia. What’s he going to do when the working productive class disappears?
The Left’s gutting Big Oil is like when asked why he robbed banks, notorious thief Willie Sutton replied, “Because that’s where the money is.” Never mind the huge taxes Big Oil pays, their utility in an oil based economy and investor ROE, oil companies are a bank to rob by Obama and the Dems.
Izanpo, you twit, the Chavez years have been marked by no US undermining. He’s been ignorable and unfortunately never fully sanctioned like Iran. We still buy the idiot’s oil. So, who exactly is keeping the “common man” down in Chavezland? And, the endpoint of your fool’s paradise is what? Just curious as to how it will all work out for you.
“This revolution means YOUR business”.
A typical Latin American caudillo. We kniow how they end; palace coup when economic disaster is too much to stand.
The lefty ignoranuses of today and much of the past 50 years don’t have a clue as to WHY their Marxist / Leninist apparatchiks HATED the NAZIS.
Below is an excerpt from a easily accessible source.
The point is that the Communists were slaughtered by the NAZIS who could see the obvious threat posed.
In post WWII lefty parlance the HABIT of calling their enemies NAZIS or Fascists is nothing more that the ignorant knee jerk of indoctrinated idiots.
From the Info Please … Link… on-line encyclopedia:
From the first days of Hitler’s “Third Reich” (for its history, see Germany; National Socialism; World War II) political opponents such as von Schleicher and Gregor Strasser (who had resigned from the Nazis) were murdered or incarcerated, and some Nazis, among them Ernst Roehm, were themselves purged. Jews, Socialists, Communists, and others were hounded, arrested, or assassinated. Government, law, and education became appendages of National Socialism. After Hindenburg’s death in 1934 the chancellorship and presidency were united in the person of the Führer [leader]. Heil Hitler! became the obligatory form of greeting, and a cult of Führer worship was propagated.
Mandatory History lessons would be a GOOD thing.
Don’t bother correcting my spelling….. I did that on purpose.
Thanks for the link, Hans Obergrabben Titsen 🙂
Izanpo
“””””I don’t know which is more amazing: the lengths to which the captialist elite are willing to go in order to keep the common man down, or the psychological contortions the people in here must undergo in order to defend them.”””””
would you please apply that logic to Zimbabwe
This experiment in Socialism will end up in lakes of blood like all the rest. As all the lefts folly’s have done. From Zimbabwe to South Africa, even in the Canada’s with the HRC’s. Cambodia, The Old Soviet Union, the Ukrainian famine by the socialists . All conveniently never mentioned or remembered. When these folks are in the lefts killing fields, they too will rot to be all but forgotten.
Everything they touch turns to death with murder as its handmaid. Its a band called
money for nothing for the lazy, while pillaging the productive. All energized by jealousy with a furious detestation for anyone who has achieved anything other than them.
As Kate so graphically displays, the bulldozer will be the end of many.
After this massacre the left will quietly forget another mass butchery in Marx‘s name, to re-write history with another in 100% failure of progressivism. Watch as the middle class & professionals leave. Like Zimbabwe the people who think this is a deal, will revert to an average life span of 37 years.
This is what resentment does in the end .When people worship men or ideas, not God. They will not only lose what these folks had but what they have now. But steal a future with but the bullet or gun. Of course the “progressives” do this murder out of love & tolerance for the down trodden as they style them Its for there own good, they say. But in their hearts is a hall of ice made of frozen Finalism conjoined to plunder.
This is what Obama wants for America? No wonder he’s creating his own army.
JMO
Bartinsky: Your “slope-headed” analogy brought up some memories. Suddenly Stanislav Szukalski’s rants about “Yetinzyn” and artwork of the same is actually starting to make some sort of sense. Google that up for some thought-provoking entertainment.
> This Chavez sub human is only one step ahead of Barrack Hussein Ogabe.
Penny…
Hello…Hello McFly?! Anyone home?! Are you seriously that naive? The US has consistently manipulated foreign oil markets to its advantage. This causes an economic domino effect, which ultimately translates into poverty for the masses.
GYM…
Got one word for you, sailor: colonialism. Just take a few moments to digest that, mmmkay?
Izanpo, at the risk of feeding the troll:
OPEC.
And are you really going to go with the “colonialism” thing? That’s sooo 1993 man. Get with the Lefty program at least, everything is Gaia and Globalism now.
Izanpo says … sailor: colonialism. Just take a few moments to digest that, mmmkay?
I know how you feel The Phantom, glib progressive jargon is so …. feeble.
Perhaps a cbc forum moderator or ‘Emily’ from Bell.ca?
Certainly a tad more contrite than Lucy, so can’t be that one.
It’s going to be really interesting to see what the O ring does about Chavez when things get really bad, one peasant mentality to another. Take from the productive and give to the unproductive without really ever understanding how it’s made or how the system works. Giving giving giving blindly, never works very long, whether it’s food aid or bailouts.
Was anything ever said so true, capitalism is the uneven distribution of wealth and socialism is the even distribution of misery. Churchill I believe?
In poor Countries the educated pray upon the uneducated and in wealthy Countries the uneducated pray upon the system with the help of the educators.
It’s like Chavez is trying to repeat all the horrendous mistakes of the 20’th century.
Time and again socialism has produced disaster after disaster, and yet here we go again, as if no one has ever read a history book.
Chavez is a disgusting thug and a bully, and a rabid socialist. Why hasn’t he been overthrown yet?
The argument over whether the Nazi’s were to the left or right is ridiculous. They were nuts, plain and simple.
Interestingly when Churchill was screaming to anyone who would listen that the Germans were re-arming for war and that England should do the same, it was the Labour Party who supported him, not the Conservatives or the Liberals.
Don’t get me wrong, I still think socialists are nuts, I’m just sick of the same old arguments.
Also, Hugo Chavez is clearly insane. I would like the left-wingers to list which left-wing Socialist leaders in the world today they actually feel represent their views and policies. This is something left-wingers are always reluctant to do because they know that it is only a matter of time before one of their fellow Socialists goes the way of Slobodan Milosevic and commits genocide. It is inevitable.
9:11 Western Canadian that is
Izanpo, you moron, as Phantom has pointed out OPEC controls the oil market. Duh. The US pays as well as Europe and the rest of the world the spot/futures price set by non-US oil players. Besides being a moron what was your point on that?
Oh, and, the masses are poor because they are as dumb as you. Google is your friend, try using it before you spout some lame fact about oil revenues and the reality of who determines oil prices, idiot.
Izanpo:
It’s a fundemental tenet of many on the far left that all of the world’s ills are due to white imperialists.
That excuse never did hold much water, and today it’s as leaky as a sieve. No white imperialist put a gun to Mugabe’s head and told him to destory his country’s economy and agriculture, and starve and terrorize his own people. He managed that all by himself.
I expect to see Venezuela go to this as a last resort to distract their citizens from the messed up state of the economy.
As for the comments on actors/artists. Do remember Reagan was a professional actor as was Charleton Heston and is Tom Selleck, none of whom could by any stretch be called Lefties. I suspect many in the arts espouse lefty ideas because they remember when they were starving artists before they won the tournament the arts business is (ie thousands start but only a few make to the finish line where the big money is). There is often no rational explanation of their success as they know others who started with them were better actors or musicians but didn’t win the tournament. They had the X factor required for stardom and so, to them, wealth is a lottery win. They translate their success to other endevours and, thus, all wealth is a lottery win. For some it is (think fourth generation Rockefellers, Vanderbuilts, Gores) but the majority of wealth in America is the result of enterprise and bloody hard work.
C’mon folks – haven’t you figured out now that the official labels are practically the opposite of what they profess?
Hitler was neither a socialist – he was happy to let private companies make money through his expansion of the war machine (see, e.g. Farber, Krupps) – nor a nationalist. He wanted an empire.
In Canada, the Liberals are not liberal, and the NDP are not democrats; they’re both closet fascists. The Conservatives are not conservative; they are actually more like classical liberals. The Green party is not really green (cf their acceptance of the massive Chinese/Indian pollution while whining incessantly about the dinky contribution from Alberta oil sands, and let’s not forget Lizzy’s attempt to bribe for more votes by plumping for more logging of old growth forests in the Maritimes while whining about increased CO2. No contradiction there, moonbat!).
Progressives are not interested in progress; as that great band sang in the 70’s “[They] are not men, they are devo”. (Hey, and Vit – how about some Devo on Late Night Radio?) The Democrats are not democratic; they are economic fascists. The Republicans (under Bush, anyway) are not for the republic; they are political fascists (and before anyone flames me for that, read the goddam Patriot Act, would you? That’s another example of something being the opposite of its name, as no true patriot would ever have acquiesed to the widespread denial of civil rights that odious piece of legislation entailed.)
Investment bankers didn’t bank on investments; they built houses of cards. The European Community is not a community; it’s a squabbling mess of full members, half-members, and wannabe members.
Do you see where I’m going with this? Don’t believe the labels; the labels are lies. Watch what they do, not what they call themselves.
And for all I wish PMSH and his government would do a few more of the things they say they stand for, when I compare them to all Western democracies, I have to say they are by far the best of the lot.
Chavez’s plan for Venezuela will save Wall Street.
EVERYONE buy Caterpillar stock NOW!
K
Wasn’t it Maggie Thatcher who said ‘the trouble with socialism is that sooner or later they run out of other people’s money’?
Once that happens all of these psuedo arguments about ‘socialism, communism, marxism..when will Chavez get overthrown… progressives, democrats, leftists, liberals’ will all be moot.
When Obama runs out of OUR money that is when the trouble will REALLY start. And we had better be ready for it,no matter the political persuasions of the day and broke or not.
me no dhimmi and ratt….
please aim before you shoot…..and blame ‘grandad’ before you mistakenly voice your -analities.
Um, snowbunnie,
Haven’t you noticed? President Bambam has already run out of money. That’s why he is going to print 1.7 trillion dollars this year. This is the political equivalent of the “junkie” cure – stop your sickness by shooting even more junk into your arm. It’ll be a fun ride, so long as you have no debt, and hold some tangible assets like gold.
Some day, an ultra-cynical realist will come along and reveal “socialism” to be merely another system of domination.
Agh, I knew I was going to divert from my original comment when I aligned Hitler with right wing ideology. Not to get too far into that, but he was a fascist. 98% of scholars agree on this. Fascism draws from some tenets of the left and right wing but mostly the latter..and especially in the case of Nazi Germany, the latter.
That aside, my main point that I think everyone ignored, was that ideology is on a continuum, a concept that Kate can’t seem to comprehend.
Day late and a dollar short again eh ben?
Keep peddling, you may get it yet.
ben says: “Extremism on any end is bad”.
Well duh!
You’re stating the obvious and then expect a podium spotlight glow ’cause you dis Kate’s intelligence?
Uh, huh.
Twisted logic, or my fav lexicon, ( a neo-non-PC dastardly word that knuckle dragging, hard working, tax paying, non white men hating people use properly IMHO), ‘retarded’ thought process.
Fascism draws from some tenets of the left and right wing but mostly the latter..and especially in the case of Nazi Germany, the latter.
Perhaps, ben, you could help the ignormi on this site out with some examples. Show us how the Nazis drew on the principles of limited government, free markets, etc… Show us the philosophical points of convergence between, say Reagan, or Thatcher, or even Harper prior to becoming PM and Hitler or Mussolini.
I mean I’m convinced by repeated assertions and all, but some people would probably like things spelled out with more concrete illustrations.
We’ll be doing the same here soon.
extreme socialist governements are pretty much the same as extreme right wing governments. The continum is circular not linnear. I see many fascistic tendencies right here along with a few socialist
…did hitler nationalize Krupp Siemans Faber BMW or any of those other large factories who made obscene profits off the war?
what private property did hitler nationalize? Socialism abolishes the institution entirely
everyone is familiar with the existence of wealthy property owners like the Krupps who lived under the Nazi regime
The communists and Social Democrats were, in fact, the main opponents of the rise of Nazi power in Weimar Germany; Nazi Germany and Socialist Russia were at each other’s throats in World War II. hitler is frequently qouted as wanting to stamp out communism, yet he also said socialism failed because it was too democratic.
Fascism was an authoritarian political movement that developed in Italy and several other European countries after 1919 as a reaction against the profound political and social changes brought about by World War I and the spread of socialism and Communism. Its name was derived from the fasces, an ancient Roman symbol of authority consisting of a bundle of rods and an ax. Italian fascism was founded in Milan on March 23, 1919, by Benito Mussolini, a former revolutionary socialist leader. His followers, mostly war veterans, were organized along paramilitary lines and wore black shirts as uniforms. The early Fascist program was a mixture of left- and right-wing ideas that emphasized intense Nationalism, productivism, anti-socialism, elitism, and the need for a strong leader. Mussolini’s oratorical skills, the post-war economic crisis, a widespread lack of confidence in the traditional political system, and a growing fear of socialism, all helped the Fascist party to grow to 300,000 registered members by 1921.
the real question is…is neoconservativism closer to nazism than say…barry goldwater style conservatism?
or maybe the real question is…do tyrants find themselves drawn to either extreme if it offers a chance at power?
at that point words and deeds tend to become divirgent