From a Russian...

[Nightshade]

..about socialism....and socialism's apologists.

These ideologies never die. When I was in Russia two weeks ago at an economic forum .... I still met hard core communists and socialists who are convinced that life under Communism was not as bad as it has being documented .... and as for those who lived under it (myself included) .... we are all liars. Same in China. Same in Cuba. As for the socialism model in South America .... the excuses are already being made on why things have gone south. The power of the elites. The influence of Western governments and their commercial interests. A fifth column. The excuse that the Latin American model of socialism is not really socialism. That their intentions were good .... and they did help some of the poor by redistributing wealth .... but they did not implement their policy correctly.

Etc. etc. etc..

Sighhh .... what can I say. Lived it personally. Witnessed it in other countries. Heard it all before .... and I have no interest to buy that t-shirt ever again.

http://warnewsupdates.blogspot.com/2016 ... erica.html

[sigma]

Kitchen table talks about politics. Nothing clever she not said.

[Tunnelcat]

And NS forgets that the abused power of the elites in our own capitalistic system is one of reasons that a thoroughly disliked, egomaniac blowhard like Trump managed to get nominated for president in the Republican party and that the other party's selection, Clinton, has such a high unpopularity rating, that it keeps on climbing and is now on par with Trump's.

http://www.krdo.com/news/clintons-unpop ... n/41449390

[vision]

The opposite of socialism is Trump. I'll take socialism, thanks.

[sigma]

By the way, I do not mind if Donald Trump to build in Moscow tallest skyscraper in the world.
At least it will not be as funny as the Radisson logo on the Soviet hotel "Ukraine", which Stalin built.
http://www.ukraina-hotel.ru/

[Nightshade]

The opposite of socialism is Trump. I'll take socialism, thanks.

"President Nicolás Maduro was chased at a routine political event by a crowd of angry protesters banging on pots and yelling that they were hungry, just days after thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets to call for his ouster, local news media reported on Saturday.

Scenes from the confrontation late Friday, which also appeared in videos uploaded to social media, captured the attention of Venezuelans, many of whom blame the unpopular president for the country’s food shortages.

In one video, Mr. Maduro tries to calm the pot-bangers by walking among them, only to be surrounded as the furious crowd yells obscenities.

“What is this?” an astounded voice behind the camera asks in one of the video clips."

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/world ... sters.html

[callmeslick]

as has been pointed out, and fleshed out for you repeatedly, Venezuela has nothing remotely resembling socialism. Yet you persist.

[woodchip]

However you parse it, it is a socialist state as it is viewed by a majority of the people.

[callmeslick]

really? Why don't you start by asking the Venezuelan people,and go from there. You make that claim with exactly ZERO proof.

[vision]

However you parse it, it is a socialist state as it is viewed by a majority of the people.

only in name.

[Spidey]

Just like Sweden.

[vision]

Just like Sweden.

Yes. And every time I argue for socialism it is simply to make the point that socialism isn't taboo and can be (should be) a necessary component of successful governance, contrary to the morons here who think otherwise.

[callmeslick]

..... the point that socialism isn't taboo and can be (should be) a necessary component of successful governance, contrary to the morons here who think otherwise.

agree completely and highlight the part that seems to completely go over some heads.

[Nightshade]

socialism isn't taboo and can be (should be) a necessary component of successful governance

A much smaller component.

[vision]

A much smaller component.

Right now the United States is lagging behind other less developed countries who not only have highly successful economies, but universal health coverage, higher wages, mandated paternity leave for all, and better funding for science. That's embarrassing. We could do with more socialism here, 100%. I'm glad the stigma of socialism is dying with the people who still think we are living in the Cold War.

[Krom]

Our national road and highway system is almost entirely socialized and is among the best in the world (if not the single best, I've been to a few other countries but none of them could quite stack up in comparison and the ones that came close had copied our system). Without it our economy couldn't operate anywhere near as well as it does. Think about it for a second, everything you need to survive from food to building materials are all transported by truck on a national socialized highway system. You need this system to survive and it is almost pure socialism. Saying all socialism is bad and should be avoided makes you a fool parroting garbage spread by liars and crony capitalist crooks looking to further game the system at your expense. Get your head out of their asses and look at the history so you can actually see why bad things happen to economic systems when they are taken to their socialist or capitalist extremes and see why both components in a balance are very necessary to keep an economy working.

Also Venezuela's problem wasn't socialism, it was that their economy depended almost exclusively on oil revenue and the price of oil dropped so much that they went bankrupt on a national scale. If you want to pin the precise cause, the high oil prices from a few years ago made it profitable to extract oil from the harder to reach places in America which OPEC didn't like because it reduced their control of the oil supply, so OPEC increased production and drove down the price of oil in order to put the American efforts out of business. It is a turf war between American oil production and OPEC oil production and Venezuela got caught in the crossfire because they had all their eggs in that one oil revenue basket, even if they were pure capitalists their economy still would have been destroyed from depending so much on a single source of revenue.

[sigma]

In my opinion, more important the preservation of the authenticity of each nation, each country, while the United States seeks to Americanization of the entire world. This vicious and wrong. Otherwise, real language and culture of all nations, except the US, will remain only in history. Thanks to Mother Russia, she was able to stop this demon at least for a while.
P.S. I hope we will continue to fight for the freedom of every nation who thinks differently than the United States, no matter what hardships and any difficulties we to suffer.

[Vander]

Nah, you just gave us the pretext to do it more violently. We needed an Emmanuel Goldstein, and you fit the bill perfectly.

[sigma]

Nah, you just gave us the pretext to do it more violently. We needed an Emmanuel Goldstein, and you fit the bill perfectly.

It is ridiculous ) To slightly straighten your brains, USA lives only because and as long as we want. All have long been calling you for calm normal methods, but you sobers up only when need start to really jabbing fist in your face unfortunately.

[callmeslick]

It is ridiculous ) To slightly straighten your brains, USA lives only because and as long as we want. .

an assertion both arrogant and ignorant.

[sigma]

It is ridiculous ) To slightly straighten your brains, USA lives only because and as long as we want. .

an assertion both arrogant and ignorant.

Well, I got carried away a bit ) but I thought you turn your attention to another post, to be honest, but it interests you less, apparently.

[Foil]

Get back to the topic, folks, and drop the international smack-talk.

[sigma]

I just wanted to add that if someone suddenly will oppress the US, in spite of all, Russia will fight for the rights of Americans, too. You do not will hope in anyone, if that..

[Foil]

...and we're done.