It’s interesting that I agree with you, here. A major difference I see between Venezuela and the USSR is that the USSR generally tried to assimilate, arrest or murder the resistant capitalist classes (ie dekulakization), while Venezuela seems to be generally exiling or marginalizing them.
It’s my understanding that Venezuela has kept its political assassinations and imprisonments low and targeted, which was not the case in the USSR.
Yes he’s certainly an authoritarian. Authoritarian doesn’t automatically mean bad…there’s such a thing as the concept of a benevolent dictator.
What evidence do you have that “the country went to shit” or “Venezuela is not a nice place to live in” or that he’s a “corrupt dictator”?
This original post, presumably, attempts to scratch slightly beneath the surface of what we hear on the news and suggest that your above statements only apply to a certain “deserving” class.
I don’t actually know a lot about Venezuela, and I’m asking these questions in earnest. I started to ask questions a lot earlier, but certainly looking into Maria Machado (this years Nobel Peace Prize winner) made some alarm bells go off. Could it be that the narrative is controlled by Machado and her neoliberal/right wing ilk, and she actually represents a large minority class of people that was purged/displaced in Venezuela?
I’m still investigating.
If you believe culture war spin defines policy…there’s your issue.
Totally agree. I meant they’d turn HBO into slop as well. They just wanted them for their back catalogue
Tubi is Fox…But I’m talking about major players tho. There’s lots of others like the BBC group of channels etc
Forgot about Apple, sorry. I always comment off the top of my head because I’m lazy. I even just watched the new Pluribus ep.
Well, yeah…they couldn’t afford to, because of all the other consolidations that came before this one: other “losses” in the streaming wars have been Fox, MGM, Discovery, etc
…but I think that losing HBO, who did at one time really push the others to up their game to compete with Game of Thrones etc, really bookmarks a place in time where the quality is going to drop off a cliff. Netflix hasn’t made an interesting series since early when Stranger Things/Narcos/Ozark were fighting in the streaming wars. They’re going to be even more motivated to produce easy clickbait slop going forward because it’s pretty much just Amazon as competition now - since Disney and Paramount mostly put out “niche” stuff.
Like…what the hell is that new Game of Thrones comedy thing they teased right before this happened? That has to have been produced to be Netflix-friendly.
Indeed. They’re not really treated as people: all protections, no consequences.
*better than people.
Actual people suffer repercussions from crimes, including penalties that inhibit their ability to earn money - while corporations have a layer of protection real people don’t have that makes it generally illegal to prevent them from making money. Corporations, even when they commit murder (corporate or human) face the equivalent of misdemeanours, simple fines, or are expected to punish themselves.
I think begins.
This signals the “streaming wars” are beginning to wrap up. Soon everybody will buy each other out and we’re either going to be served Disney slop or Netflix Slop.
We’re down to what: Netflix, Disney, Paramount, Apple, Amazon?
I guess this the beginning of the end of the streaming wars. It was fun while it lasted.
Soon all the cutting edge series’ will be replaced by the low effort high “engagement” slop that Netflix produces.
Harpers’ culture war posturing wasn’t policy. He was bad, but no worse than Justin - who’s trade and corporate policy was to the right of Harper. Justin, of course, was a culture war liberal with his gender equal cabinet etc
Oh? Not McKenzie King who brought in UI and the Baby Bonus? Not Diefenbaker who mass-funded hospitals? Not Pierre that brought in the Charter of Righrs on Freedoms? EtcEtc. Justin governed right of centre…a boiler plate neoliberal just like Harper was. Pardon me, but you don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.
I liked it, although I wish they picked an actor that’s a little less desperate to be in everything, lol.
But…immediately deflating the cliffhanger from last week was a slick move. I think all the people who wanted this to be a sci-fi invasion thriller must have moved on, by now…:)
Seem like he’s a typical academic. I get it…you prefer to muddy the waters and shoot the messenger then engage with the content. Alternate view to…something you didn’t read? I assure you it doesn’t “demonize socialism”…it just chronicles events according to disclosure/a “data dump” of declassified files. It’s not ideological…it’s for eggheads who don’t want to read thousands of documents. When I read it it just helped me understand the playing field better.
The problems with the USSR weren’t with socialism, you’re missing my message. They were with capitalists corrupting it from within. There’s certainly an argument to be made that too much control was allocated to regional bureaucrats - when targeted positive/idealistic authoritarianism was more appropriate while socialism was in its infancy. But this in the context of just Russia, because I don’t agree with the expansion that created the USSR: my opinion is it created an unmanageably large state with too many “distracting” regional issues that were ripe for capitalists to exploit. Those faithful to the cause were simply stretched too thin and they couldn’t deliver a meaningful improvement to enough people, largely because the guilty regional bureaucrats weren’t loyal to the cause and they created systematic exploitation of the people they were tasked to help. Obviously I’m being unrealistic…just trying to get closer to 20/20 hindsight.
You’re arguing that the conservatives are worse…I agree with that.
I’m arguing that the Liberals acting like conservatives makes the conservatives tack even further to the right, and we slide and slide into late stage capitalist hell.
Trudeau was to the right of Mulroney and on-par with Harper…you’re just cold-trippin’. He’s not even in the too 10 most-leftist. Now it sounds like I’m listening to conservative propaganda. Totally nuts. Conservative Icon Diefenbaker was more socialist than Trudeau Jr…as was Trudeau Sr, and Pearson, and MacKenzie King, etcetcetc
Dental care was an NDP policy…let’s not rewrite history and forget we literally had a snap election because Trudeau initially didn’t want to pass it.
That’s a ridiculous way to frame a public university employee…but I’m just going to declare an impasse and drop it if we can’t agree on facts.
Talk about virtue signalling and purity testing, yikes. Still, thank you for the conversation, I will admit I’m a little amused at you trying to “out socialist” me, but I don’t feel I need to list my credentials in return…I’m comfortable with how militantly virulent I am on the subject of socialism ;)
Like I said: put two leftists together, and they’ll find a way to argue. I’ve been guilty of it too…it is what it is.
I mean…Fallout isn’t a great game. It’s too “Rockstar”/console driven in my mind. Looks absolutely amazing, but the some of the bewilderingly rigid character mechanics completely break immersion for me.
I gave you evidence…and you ignored it. I can provide additional evidence beyond ‘54, if you acknowledge those archives.
You believe Marxism allows for the billionaire and political classes in China that control the means of production? Bold.
You don’t “own” Marxism, btw. Most Marxists I know at least acknowledge and criticize the very large problems in the USSR and China. I mean…I also could be considered a Marxist…but I consider myself a post-Marxist because he’s been improved on. I also think we can do better than Marx the man as a foundation - don’t get me started on Lenin, lol. The weird thing is I like Stalin (but Che all the way).
This isn’t zero sum: I’m not saying either is all bad because they have kleptocrats and billionaires. We haven’t even broached the topic of what I think about the USSR and China as a whole (because you’re so hung up on denying their systematic problems in favour of focusing on the positives?) in contrast to what we see in the western democracies (for example) you’re typing as if i condemn them and I prefer the USA, or something…not a thing.
We also get it from Maduro and the rest of the Chavanistas: his party rules by supreme power and decree. The way his party allocates power as a matter of internal affairs, may be another story.
Please, let’s not talk in absolutes. This notion that any and all narratives that you deem negative are part of a grand conspiracy just isn’t true.
I implied in my original reply that I believe Maduro may be benevolent, along the lines of Castro. I don’t really have a problem with dictators…the problem with dictators is they’re usually fascists. That isn’t the case in Venezuela.