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Messenger: The BANNED -- Hemphill Sent: 2/9/2019 9:13:10 PM
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"Socialism has never had a chance to take root in Latin America due to USA intervention. So there's no real way to tell if it would have benefited the people or not, it's never had a chance to grow."

LOL.. Someone isnt paying attention..

Ten years ago, South America was witnessing the rise of what came to be known as the “pink tide.”

Characterized by an allegedly kinder and softer version of socialism than the “red” communism of Castro’s Cuba, the pink tide had begun with the election of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela in 1998, followed by the election of Lula da Silva in Brazil in 2002, and followed by the rise of the Kirchners in Argentina in 2003. The tide continued to roll in with the election of Evo Morales in Bolivia in 2006, and Rafael Correa’s election in Ecuador in 2007.

As these new leftist candidates gained traction, their success was said to herald a new era of leftist politics in South America that would bring to an end the “neoliberal” consensus and impose a new, more humane economics on Latin American society.


Eighteen years after Hugo Chavez’s inauguration, things haven’t gone quite as planned.

The economy of Venezuela is in seemingly terminal decline with riots, shortages, and enforced slave labor imposed in an attempt to force more production out of the population.

Now that socialism has thoroughly failed, countries like Brazil with Bolsonaro are turning to nationalism, populism, and capitalism. This is happening around the world with much of Europe fighting to pull out of the E.U


Messenger: Jahcub Onelove Sent: 2/9/2019 9:35:09 PM
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"LOL.. Someone isnt paying attention.."

"Socialism has never had a chance to take root in Latin America due to USA intervention. So there's no real way to tell if it would have benefited the people or not, it's never had a chance to grow."


Messenger: The BANNED -- Hemphill Sent: 2/10/2019 1:43:51 AM
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You can repeat it all you want but I just showed how over the last decace alone, many socialist schemes have grown and failed.. Also, quite interesting.. Are you promoting the growth of socialism? As in, give it a chance? Seems so.. And really not surprising.. Its either you support that evil or you simply "havent been paying attention."


Messenger: The BANNED -- Hemphill Sent: 2/10/2019 1:52:17 AM
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A bit more on the subject...

VENEZUELA BEFORE CHÁVEZ: A PRELUDE TO SOCIALIST FAILURE

Socialism creep has been unfolding for decades

Jose Nińo | Mises.org - MAY 5, 2017

Venezuela Before Chávez: A Prelude to Socialist Failure


"Venezuela’s current economic catastrophe is well documented.

Conventional narratives point to Hugo Chávez’s regime as the primary architect behind Venezuela’s economic tragedy. While Chávez and his successor Nicolás Maduro deserve the brunt of the blame for Venezuela’s current economic calamity, the underlying flaws of Venezuela’s political economy point to much more systemic problems.

Observers must look beyond stage one, and understand Venezuela’s overall history over the past 50 years in order to get a more thorough understanding of how the country has currently fallen to such lows.


Socialism Before Chávez
Analysts like to point to rosier pictures of Pre-Chávez Venezuela, but what these “experts” conveniently ignore is that the seeds of Venezuela’s destruction were sowed during those “glory years.” Years of gradual economic interventionism took what was once a country bound to join the ranks of the First World to a middle-tier developing country. This steady decline eventually created an environment where a demagogue like Chávez would completely exploit for his political gain.

The Once-Prosperous Venezuela
To comprehend Venezuela’s long-term decline, one must look back at what made it so prosperous in the first place. Before the completion of its first oil field on April 15, 1914, Venezuela was essentially a Banana Republic marked by political instability. This was largely a consequence of its colonial past and the period following its independence from Spain. Despite gaining independence from Spain, Venezuela maintained many of its primitive political and economic practices, above all, its exclusionary mercantilist and regulatory policies that kept it in an impoverished state.

However, the discovery of oil in the early twentieth century completely changed the entire ballgame. The powerful agricultural aristocracy would be supplanted by an industrialist class that sought to open its oil markets to multinational exploitation and foreign investment. For the first time in its history, Venezuela had a relatively liberal, free market economy and it would reap countless benefits in the decades to come.

From the 1910s to the 1930s, the much-maligned dictator Juan Vicente Gómez helped consolidate the Venezuelan state and modernized an otherwise neocolonial backwater by allowing market actors, domestic and foreign, to freely exploit newly discovered oil deposits. Venezuela would experience substantial economic growth and quickly establish itself as one of Latin America’s most prosperous countries by the 1950s.

In the 1950s, General Marcos Pérez Jiménez would continue Gómez’s legacy. At this juncture, Venezuela was at its peak, with a fourth place ranking in terms of per capita GDP worldwide.

More Than Just Oil
While oil exploitation did play a considerable role in Venezuela’s meteoric ascent from the 1920s to 1970s, this only scratches the surface in explaining how Venezuela became so prosperous during this period. A combination of a relatively free economy, an immigration system that attracted and assimilated laborers from Italy, Portugal, and Spain, and a system of strong property rights, allowed Venezuela to experience unprecedented levels of economic development from the 1940s up until the 1970s.

As mentioned earlier, Venezuela was at the height of its prosperity during the military dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez’s regime. Like Juan Vicente Gómez’s regime, Pérez Jiménez’s stewardship of Venezuela was characterized by heavy political repression.

Venezuela’s capitalist structure remained largely intact during Pérez Jiménez’s tenure, albeit with creeping degrees of state involvement. Pérez Jiménez did introduce some elements of crony capitalism, pharaonic public works projects, and increased state involvement in “strategic industries” like the steel industry. Nevertheless, the Pérez Jiménez regime was open to foreign investment, let the price system function normally in most sectors of the economy, and did not embark on creating a profligate welfare state.

The Road to Social Democracy
Despite the prosperity brought about by Venezuela’s booming economy in the 1950s, Marcos Pérez Jiménez’s government drew the ire of many left-leaning activists due its heavy-handed measures. The tipping point came in 1958, when these leftist activists, working in tandem with a sympathetic military, successfully overthrew Pérez Jiménez in a coup. Pérez Jiménez would live the rest of his life in exile and would be a figure of derision among Venezuelan intellectual and political elites, despite the unprecedented economic and social development under his watch.

Following the 1958 coup, naval officer Wolfgang Larrázabal occupied the presidency briefly until general elections were held later that year. Notable social democrat political leader Rómulo Betancourt would come out on top in these elections and assume the presidency from 1959 to 1964. The Fourth Republic of Venezuela — Venezuela’s longest lasting period of democratic rule, was established under Betancourt’s administration. In 1961, a constitution was introduced, dividing the government into 3 branches — executive, legislative, and judicial — and establishing an activist role for the Venezuelan state in economic affairs.

This political order was further consolidated by the establishment of the Punto Fijo Pact. The Punto Fijo Pact consisted of a bipartisan agreement between two political parties — Acción Democratica (Democratic Action) and COPEI (Christian Democrats) — that laid the foundation for a social democratic political order and alternation of power between the two parties.

What seemed like a genuine move toward democratic stability, Venezuela’s Fourth Republic marked the beginning of a process of creeping socialism that gradually whittled away at Venezuela’s economic and institutional foundations.

The Socialist Origins of Venezuela’s Pro-Democracy Advocates
Venezuela’s current collapse did not happen overnight. It was part of a drawn out process of economic and institutional decay that began decades before.

When Venezuela returned to democracy in 1958, it looked like it was poised to begin an era of unprecedented prosperity and political stability.

However, Venezuela’s democratic experiment was doomed from the start, and one needn’t look any further at the political background of its very own founder, Rómulo Betancourt, to understand why it’s entire political system was built on a house of cards.

Rómulo Betancourt was an ex-communist who renounced his Marxist ways in favor of a more gradualist approach of establishing socialism. Despite evolving into more of a social democrat, Betancourt still believed in a very activist role for the State in economic matters.

Betancourt was part of a generation of intellectuals and student activists that aimed to fully nationalize Venezuela’s petroleum sector and use petroleum rents to establish a welfare state of sorts. These political figures firmly believed that for Venezuela to become a truly independent country and free itself from the influence of foreign interests, the government must have complete dominion over the oil sector.

Under this premise, a nationalized oil industry would finance cheap gasoline, “free” education at all levels, healthcare, and a wide array of other public services.

This rhetoric strongly resonated among the lower and middle classes, which would form the bulwark of Betancourt’s party, Acción Democrática, voter base for years to come.

At its core, this vision of economic organization assumed that the government must manage the economy through central planning. Oil would be produced, managed, and administered by the state, while the government would try to phase out the private sector.

Interventionism from the Start
Betancourt’s administration, while not as interventionist as succeeding 4th Republic governments, capped off several worrisome policies, which included:

Devaluation of the Venezuelan currency, the Bolívar.
Failed land reform that encouraged squatting and undermined the property rights of landowners.
The establishment of a Constitutional order based on positive rights and an active role for the Venezuelan state in economic affairs
Betancourt’s government followed-up with considerable tax hikes that saw income tax rates triple to 36%. In typical fashion, spending increases would be accompanied with these increases, as the Venezuelan government started to generate fiscal deficits because of its out of control social programs. These growing deficits would become a fixture in Venezuelan public finance during the pre-Chávez era.

The Nationalization of the Oil Industry
While Betancourt did not achieve his end goal of nationalizing the Venezuelan oil industry, his government laid the foundation for subsequent interventions in that sector.

Thanks to the large oil boom of the 1970s, the government of Carlos Andrés Pérez capitalized on the unprecedented flow of petroleum rents brought about by the 1970s energy crisis where oil-producing countries like Venezuela benefited handsomely from high oil prices.

Betancourt’s vision was finally achieved in 1975, when Carlos Andrés Pérez’s government nationalized the petroleum sector. The nationalization of Venezuela’s oil industry fundamentally altered the nature of the Venezuelan state. Venezuela morphed into a petrostate, in which the concept of the consent of the governed was effectively turned on its head.

Instead of Venezuelans paying taxes to the government in exchange for the protection of property and similar freedoms, the Venezuelan state would play a patrimonial role by bribing its citizens with all sorts of handouts to maintain its dominion over them.

On the other hand, countries based on more liberal frameworks of governance have citizens paying taxes, and in return, these governments provide services that nominally protect the life, liberty, and property of its citizens. The state is not the owner, thus giving the citizens a strong check against the Leviathan should the government overstep its boundaries.

Oil Nationalization: A Pig Trough for Politicians
Pérez would take advantage of this state power-grab to finance a profligate welfare state and a cornucopia of social welfare programs that resonated strongly with the populace. As a result, deficit spending became embraced by the political class and increasing levels of foreign and public debt would become the norm in Venezuelan fiscal affairs.

At this juncture, Venezuela’s economy became overwhelmingly politicized. Oil boom periods were characterized by an inflow of petrodollars that the state used for pharaonic public works and social projects as a means to pacify the populace.

In reality, no real wealth creation took place during these boom periods, as the state redistributed the rents according to political whims and usurped functions traditionally held by civil society and private economic actors. When politicians and bureaucrats oversee businesses, decision-making is based on partisan and state interests rather than efficiency and consumer preferences.

Although the nationalization of the petroleum industry did not result in an immediate economic downturn, it laid the groundwork for institutional decay that would clearly manifest itself during the 80s and 90s."


Messenger: Nesta1 Sent: 2/10/2019 2:28:43 AM
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It's interesting that Scandinavian countries, where socialist practices have been "tolerated" by the seat of satan (i.e., Washington DC) and, hence, have not subjected to incessant harassment, seem to have done just fine with their brand of socialism.
Although, that has begun to change with a flood of refugees from violent conflict in the Middle East and Africa -- violent conflict and refugee crises fomented and fueled by...oh yeah... the seat of satan.


Messenger: Nesta1 Sent: 2/10/2019 2:59:15 AM
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The propaganda narrative presented by Hemphill (cut & pasted from I don't know where) euphemistically talks about a "once-prosperous Venezuela". The elephant in the room with such propagandistic portrayals of Venezuela under the rule of U.S. puppet leaders is that the overwhelming majority of wealth and income were hoarded at the top of the socioeconomic ladder by a small oligarchy of ultra-wealthy families.This pattern is repeated over and over again throughout Latin America and is Washington preferred socioeconomic & political dynamic because it is easy to manipulate and exploit. Suffice to say that a huge part of the Venezuelan population were not benefiting from the so-called "prosperity" and remained dirt poor and ignored. Yeah, the "prosperity" was great if you were part of the Venezuelan "1%" but the conditions sucked if you were part of the poor masses completely disdained by Uncle Sam's puppet leadership. Popular revolutions, such as that of the Chavistas, don't get much traction when a country is prosperous and exhibits a fair and equitable distribution of wealth.


Messenger: Nesta1 Sent: 2/10/2019 3:00:52 AM
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OKAY, YOU'VE HEARD OUT HEMPHILL, NOW LET'S CHECK OUT THE REAL SITUATION:

Since the CIA-crafted narrative of the situation in Venezuela (probably crafted by Pompeo himself when we was Director) dominates most of the mainstream and alternative Western media, I've taken the time to write down the real situation. Some of you may already know all of this, but if you do I kind of doubt it came from the American MSM.

In January of this year, the U.S. government openly staged an outright illegal regime change attempt in Venezuela by directing an American-educated Venezuelan, Juan Guiado, to declare himself to be the "interim" president of that country and then taking the extraordinary step of officially recognizing this obscure figure as the leader of the county. Guiado has never run for the office of president of Venezuela and before the U.S. anointed him a couple of weeks ago four out of five of Venezuelans didn't even know his name and had no idea who he was. To see this kind of criminal act committed right out in the open by the U.S. with no attempt to hide it was only made more surreal by the U.S. openly strong-arming all of its vassal states around the world to also recognize Washington's illegal coup. Many of the U.S. vassals, from the EU to Australia and Canada have done just that: Recognized an illegal, unconstitutional Washington-anointed, self-appointed local politician as the "legitimate" president of Venezuela.

We need a little historical context as to why the U.S. not only is up to its routine criminal activity in Latin America, but doing it in such an open and flagrant way. Twenty years ago Hugo Chavez came to power and it was the first time in a couple of centuries that a representative of the broader population of Venezuela (i.e., including the huge poor segment) had achieved power in that country. Traditionally, the country had been run by an oligarchy of ultra-wealthy families beholden to Washington (the same as it is has been, and more or less continues to be, all over Latin America). Those oligarch families exploited Venezuela's rich resources in order to line their own pocket while serving as puppets of Washington, which guaranteed their perpetually unpopular hold on power in exchange for giving U.S. companies a stake in the resource (e.g., oil exploitation). Chavez's "sin" against the Washington establishment was two-fold: (1) he represented the interests of the Venezuelan People instead of those of Washington, Big Oil and Venezuela's uber-wealthy, and (2) he further nationalized oil projects in the Venezuelan oil fields and began diverting some of the proceeds of oil sales to the People of Venezuela instead of into the pockets of the oligarch families and their U.S. corporate partners. In short, he refuse to be Washington's puppet.
Washington's answer to this sovereign "impudence" has been to wage a patently illegal (under the UN Charter) economic war against the people of Venezuela for two decades to attempt to cripple their economy in order to drive the Chavistas (i.e., first Chavez and then his successor Nicholas Maduro) from power. The U.S. attempted an illegal coup against Chavez in 2002 , but it was quickly put down by the Venezuelan government. Many scholars observe that the artificially-induced collapse of oil prices in 2014 by Saudi Arabia (at the behest of then U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry) targeted not only the Russian and Iranian economies but that of Venezuela as well. This strategic move was quite effective at damaging the Venezuelan economy.

Aiding & abetting the U.S. in destroying the economy of Venezuela have been the ultra-wealthy families of Venezuela whose businesses, such a food and paper production, were not nationalized by the Chavistas (that was probably a big mistake on the Chavistas' part). The ultra-wealthy families, who want their political power back despite their lack of popular support, have been the ones impeding/withholding the deliveries of food, medicines and all types of consumer goods to Venezuela, and thereby driving prices up to cause out-of-control inflation - all with Washington's blessings and with its promise that if the Chavistas try to stop the oligarchs from destroying their own country's economy by pursuing legal action or force against them, Washington will intervene with force to protect them.

With the addition of the notorious war criminal John Bolton as National Security Advisor, it was only a matter of time until we saw the level of blatant and egregious international criminal activity on the part of the U.S. government increase. Hence, we saw the kidnapping of Huawei Chief Financial Officer by Canada at the behest of the U.S. government as part of U.S. economic warfare against China and it's technology sector, and now a naked Venezuelan coup attempt showing complete disdain for the UN Charter (which John Bolton openly denigrates despite the U.S. having participated in crafting it and encouraging the nations of the world to adopt and abide by it).

We have the U.S. threatening violence now against Venezuela because the country's own military refuses to participate in overthrowing the duly elected government of Nicholas Maduro. Yes, duly elected because despite the time-honored U.S. tactic of directing its stooges in countries to boycott elections that they cannot win legitimately and then using the boycotts to declare the election results illegitimate; opposition candidates did have every opportunity to participate in the 2018 presidential election and made their decision not to participate (or at least followed Washington's direction that they boycott them).

Both mainstream and even alternative news media in the U.S. seem to be running the CIA-generated script on Venezuela. The reason I'm pretty certain of this is that I have searched for accurate information about Venezuela's current events over the past few years and I have found Venezuela to be second to only North Korea in terms of inability to find any genuine news coverage for conditions the country (e.g., if I want actual news coverage instead of the scripted propaganda, I have to read it in Spanish). So the U.S. media is undoubtedly replete with lies about everything Venezuela including the degree of global support for the criminal actions of the U.S.

In the real world, the Venezuelan army and the Venezuelan courts remain squarely behind elected president Nicolas Maduro and a list of countries that comprise the majority of the world’s population, including China, Russia, India, Mexico, Turkey, South Africa and quite a few others, speak out in support of the constitutionally-elected Venezuelan president.

In closing, I'm reminded of the famous speech by Hugo Chavez before the UN General Assembly in 2006. Recall that this was at a time when the U.S. had recently engaged in the unlawful invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, and was threatening Venezuela. Speaking one day after George W. Bush had addressed the same session of the General Assembly, Chávez announced, "The devil came here yesterday, and it smells of sulfur still today, this table that I am now standing in front of." At that point, Chávez made the sign of the cross, positioned his hands as if praying, and looked briefly upwards as if invocation of God. He continued "Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the President of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world."

I can only imagine that the stench of sulfur still lingers in the indoor air of the UN after Mike Pompeo's Hitleresque demand that nations "pick a side" (meaning support America's criminal action against Venezuela or stand up for the principles of international law, the UN Charter, and peace).









Messenger: Jahcub Onelove Sent: 2/10/2019 5:22:45 AM
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Give thanks for your post Nesta1

Hemphill I overstand that you are ignorant of the history of Venezuela/Latin America and all the evils that the USA/CIA has brought down on them. The media you subscribe to only perpetuates such ignorance and as a result you have become deaf dumb and blind to the truth of the matter...

The only government I promote is a RastafarI government, a government with Christ as King. Until His Majesty is on His throne as Earths Rightful Ruler; until that day, there is no government that I will promote.

The point that I have made is that every time any of Latin Americas countries/peoples have elected a Socialist leader, the USA punishes (tortures, starves, murders, robs, etc) those countries/peoples. That has long been proven a fact.

I know this fact, not only because many previously classified documents have become declassified and anyone can read the history if they choose to; also because it is part of my history. It is the experience of my people. Hundreds of thousands of people throughout Latin America have suffered, been kidnapped, disappeared, tortured, murdered, made to starve, made to leave their homelands; due to the CIA, School of Americas (now called the "Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation") and other such organizations and dealings of the USA, that have been the cause of all kinds of fuckery throughout Latin America for a long time now.

And still most peoples of Latin America know that it's not the fault of the peoples of the USA; most Latin Americans overstand that the people of the USA are just ignorant of what the USA's government has done and still is doing. Just like you Hemphill are ignorant of your countries history and present day dealings with Latin America. Because you were never taught the truth about it.

May Jah give you the eyes to see and the ears to hear

Jah Love and Guidance


Messenger: Nesta1 Sent: 2/10/2019 6:27:34 AM
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Truth -- well spoken, Jahcub

Hemphill, This is probably a good time to yield to the truth about Venezuela and Latin America in general. Just recently, the U.S,. has illegally locked up Venezuela's reserves in U.S. banks demonstrating that our government is promoting a humanitarian crisis in Venezuela not seeking to avoid one. Both Jahcub and I have family experiences down there and are have firsthand experience with how the US government operates in Latin America.

That the Trump Administration appointed Elliott Abrams, a bona fide war criminal monster who belonged in prison years ago alongside fellow war criminal John Bolton, as envoy to Venezuela is testimony to just how depraved American officialdom has become and that nothing has changed in the U.S. government’s approach to Latin America. Abrams’ role as the architect of genocides in Central America is well-documented. That such unapologetically barbaric ghouls, whose crimes rival those of any Nazi war criminal from Berlin or Auschwitz, should be holding high office in the U.S. government today is simply disgusting. Is Trump ignorant of their pasts or does he just not care that he's employing criminals in high official capacities? I can ASSURE YOU assure you that appointing Abrams as envoy to Venezuela is viewed by 90% of Latin Americans as a huge symbolic slap in the face.

On a personal note, I once spent an afternoon listening one-on-one to the tearful confessions of a former El Salvadoran Army officer (who had found redemption in Christianity) during which he told me of the things that he had been trained to do by the U.S. Army School of the Americas (FT. Benning, Georgia) and how he had done those things to innocent countrymen, including hundreds of women and children, in El Salvador at the behest of ghouls like Elliot Abrams. I won't share with you what he told me because it's simply too sickening. All I will say is that if you imagine of the worst possible -- medieval -- things that one human being could inflict upon another human being, that is what he was trained to do by the U.S. Army (and dutifully did). Only through his feeling of Christian Salvation was he able to keep from committing suicide and continue living. Because he had loyally served as one of its proxy terrorist torturers & executioners, the U.S. rewarded him with a Green Card. He became a grocery store clerk in Tacoma and was the Head Deacon in the local Spanish-speaking Seventh Day Adventist Church. The U.S. government monsters who designed this former officer's fate are still active today -- now operating in Venezuela.



Messenger: Jahcub Onelove Sent: 2/17/2019 3:18:38 PM
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