T. Jefferson spoke to this in a timeless fashion...


what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?

let them take arms. the remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. what signify a few lives lost in a century or two?

the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. it is it’s natural manure.

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith. Paris Nov. 13. 1787.

Venezuela's poor join the march against socialism
By Monica Showalter

The poor and downtrodden, the very people socialists claim to champion, are leading Venezuela's march .. against socialism. Both the Washington Post and Reuters see it as a turning point.

This would be the same socialism that has justified its lost freedoms, its expropriation of property, its redistribution of income and its tolerance of a government elite ... because it's to help the poor. The left defends this socialism, whether it's Michael Moore, or Oliver Stone or Naomi Campbell - all because of socialism's supposed good intention to help the poor.

Today, the poor are banging pots and throwing eggs at the hated regime. The Post notes in its piece on the new development, citing the man who brought Venezuela to its shambles, the late Hugo Chavez:

Chávez, a master showman who promised his country a socialist “revolution,” loved to wade through crowds of poor Venezuelans, blowing kisses and dispensing hugs. But when his successor has ventured out in public in recent months, he’s been pelted with eggs and chased by angry mobs.

“Maduro is so different,” said Irene Castillo, 26, who lives in El Guarataro, a tough neighborhood not far from the presidential palace. She voted for Maduro in 2013 when Chávez died after 14 years in power. But no one on Castillo’s block supports the government anymore, she said. “Now, those who remain ‘chavistas’ are just the radicals.”

Like the lady said, all that are left now are 'just radicals.'

Her remark underlines that socialism has never been about helping the poor. Capitalism is what helps the poor, any Cato study can show this, or the experience of Chile, which successfully transitioned from socialism to capitalism provides the proof of the pudding. A look at China since its economic reforms beginning in 1976 shows the reality, too. Socialism is about empowering an elite and taking over every single facet of the poor and powerless' lives, all in the name of 'helping them.'.

It's true that the poor and indigent have often voted for socialists in the name of free stuff. But it leads them to grief, destroying every chance possible of climbing out of poverty so long as socialism is in the saddle. Chavez brought socialism to Venezuela but he left the poor worse off than ever. At the same time, his own surviving family members remain billionaires (Chavez's daughter Maria Gabriela is Venezuela's richest woman), and his Castroite patrons over in Cuba, remain grotesque plutocrats.

As for the poor, they are left with just protest as their weapon and that comes at considerable risk and brutality. The Post reports:

But Venezuelans from longtime chavista strongholds are starting to join them, at considerable risk. Residents of Castillo’s neighborhood protested openly against Maduro for the first time last week.
Pro-government block captains in neighborhoods like El Guarataro have responded by threatening to deny food rations to those who march with the opposition or fail to join pro-Maduro rallies. Militia groups armed by the government and known as “colectivos” are deployed to intimidate would-be defectors and are suspected in the deaths of several protesters.

The Post notes that those were the ones still strong enough to protest, or the ones not to preoccupied looking for food. Any questions as to what socialism fails every time looks like/ We hope the Post is right that this really is a turning point.

http://www.americanthinker.com...ainst_socialism.html

Well, that leaves the people with 2 options:
1. Continue being peasants
2. Start stacking fucking bodies

Pretty sure we know which option they're going with right now, but if history had taught us anything....

Well, sorta. The mass of people is still shifting, and the greater the majority in favor of democracy, the lower the probability and breadth of violence. Get enough people on the other side of the barricades, and the potential for Maduro to gain anything by violence diminishes to the point that violence becomes utterly pointless.

The Venezuelan Minister of Defense has already been reduced to making his great public pronunciamiento about the loyalty of the Venezuelan Army in front of a cheering crowd of...revolutionary militia. Imagine if Hitler had felled compelled to reassure the German people of the loyalty and enthusiasm of the Wehrmacht, but was forced to make his point in front of a cheering crowd of SS just to get some kind of cheering crowd in front of the cameras.

On June 1, 2012, Venezuelans lost their right to purchase or keep weapons they already owned.

quote:

Originally posted by mikeyspizza:
On June 1, 2012, Venezuelans lost their right to purchase or keep weapons they already owned.

Common sense gun control.

The government and some of the thugs (militias) that are on their side, are the only ones with guns.

But today Maduro raised the minimum wage!

Because anyone has any money at all and inflation isn't rampant....

^^^ Heh, heh, heh, yeah - for the third time this year in order to keep up the pretense of keeping up with galloping inflation. Even giving away hundreds of free homes isn't keeping protesters out of the streets.

quote:

Originally posted by 220-9er:
The government and some of the thugs (militias) that are on their side, are the only ones with guns.

Oh, Maduro's passing out 400,000 rifles to them.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2...peaking-tension.html

And the militias that will be expanded by the addition of those 400,000 (or perhaps 500,000, accounts vary) newly-armed thugs? Well! Maduro's ordered them to seize power if he's deposed.

http://www.laht.com/article.as...773&CategoryId=10717

I guess that, no matter what happens, once the Chavistas are gone then Venezuela will be one armed-ass nation. I just can't see there being a way to collect that many weapons once they're distributed, and I can't see the opposition insisting on keeping its constituents disarmed. Registered and restricted, maybe, but not disarmed. After all, the crazies out there are still going to have 400,000 to 500,000 rifles, and some of them may be willing to sell theirs to the capitalists under the table.

When was the last time you saw a protest this big in the USA? Imagine what it would take....

It's terrible whats going on down there. things are quickly coming to a head.

here's the real exchange rate, when Chavez took office it was 1-1 and 3 months ago it was 2600-1

https://dolartoday.com/

The Pope can fix it.

quote:

Originally posted by Hamden106:
The Pope can fix it.

If he brings his Socialist ideals or even attitude to the table, he will inflame it. If the people of Venezuela have had access to the same media we have, they know he is of the same cloth as their oppressors. Personally, I'd like to see him try and fail in a political intervention. Religion in politics and politics in religion are destructive. They should each exist without the slightest involvement of the other.

quote:

Originally posted by Oat_Action_Man:
But today Maduro raised the minimum wage!

Because anyone has any money at all and inflation isn't rampant....

Raising wages even 1000% still doesn't put food in the stores or in people's bellies when there is not enough food.

He's driving that bus right over the edge....

I spoke with a guy recently who was in the military and was a part of the second coup, about 10 years ago. the government was rounding up all the military members who participated in the coup after it failed. He said one of his friends was captured, and his friends mom called to warn him. he packed a bag in record time and left. He made it to Colombia that night and immigrated into the US from Colombia and has been here ever since. His stories of Venezuela were crazy. Almost unbelievable, if I didn't have some sense of what went on down there already from an online blogger down there that I follow. But this guy's stories are also from a decade ago - I can only imagine it's gotten exponentially worse.

quote:

Originally posted by BamaJeepster:

quote:

Originally posted by Oat_Action_Man:
But today Maduro raised the minimum wage!

Because anyone has any money at all and inflation isn't rampant....

Actually, I got more clarification of the point today:

Maduro is raising the minimum wage of PUBLIC employees. Not everyone.

It's almost as if all socialists are alike....

Well, let's see. He's handing out houses, he's handing out raises, and I've seen an article out there to the effect that he's having neighborhood loyalists pass out bags of food to the party faithful.

It sounds to me like only the most openly ardent are meant to physically survive in his world.

Holy cats. Maduro's turned Venezuela into North Korea. I wonder if he knows how things turned out in Cambodia before the Vietnamese (i.e. their next-door neighbors rather than a bunch of people from a whole 'nother hemisphere) kicked the original "revolutionaries" out of power?

Venezuelan Police Unleash Devastating Water Cannon On Protesters

If the protests that have rocked Venezuela over the past few months can teach us anything, it’s that the Maduro regime is desperately clinging to power. Protests are normal in any country, but when they occur every day for weeks on end, and result in dozens of deaths, it’s obvious that the government is in an unstable position. And as the government grows more desperate, their methods of controlling the population will always become more extreme.

That’s what’s happening in Venezuela, where the police have unleashed a devastating water cannon on protesters, which has been referred to as “La Ballena,” or “The Whale.”

You may be wondering how the police in Venezuela could live with themselves after inflicting this kind of carnage on their fellow citizens, week after week. How could they physically defend such an atrocious regime? It turns out that the riot cops in Venezuela are just as desperate and fed-up with the government as everyone else in that country.

The Wall Street Journal recently interviewed eight police officers in Venezuela, and discovered that the police are completely demoralized. Many of them hate the government, but they can’t find work anywhere else. They’re willing to fight the protesters for a mere $40 a month.

“One day I will step aside and just walk away, blend into the city,” she said. “No average officers support this government anymore.”

The security forces’ once fierce loyalty to Mr. Maduro’s charismatic predecessor Hugo Chávez has largely given way to demoralization, exhaustion and apathy amid an economic collapse and endless protests, said eight security officers from different forces and locations in interviews with The Wall Street Journal.

Most of them say they want only to earn a steady wage amid crippling food shortages and a decimated private sector. Others say fear of a court-martial keeps them in line.

“We’re just trying to survive,” said Caracas police officer Viviane, a single mother who says she shows up for protest duty so she can feed her 1-year-old son. “I would love to quit but there are no other jobs.”

And that is how a socialist government keeps its boot on the neck of the population. They keep everyone so poor, that the only way the average person can survive, is by brutalizing their fellow citizens.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/...er-cannon-protesters