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10751. alistairconnor - 3/5/2013 5:17:57 PM You need a Five Stars Movement (Grillo and co). These people are the real shit. Jexster would love them. 10752. iiibbb - 3/6/2013 3:03:09 AM I like Maddow. 10753. bhelpuri - 3/6/2013 2:10:49 PM Chavez dies + the response is huge waves of idiocy from almost all camps. Though I'd doubted it in his lifetime, it does appear the undeniably big-hearted character has achieved tremendous symbolic potency which will far overshadow his real-life achievements/failures. This does in fact place him in the company of his idol Bolivar (who similarly failed, spectacularly, at almost everything he assayed).
A reasonable assessment (written before he died). 10754. bhelpuri - 3/6/2013 2:13:20 PM Of course unseemly right-winger Yanqui cheering was to be expected when this happened, but what I find almost as offensive is the instant lionization of Chavez by a hugely disparate group of progressives/leftists/anti-colonials and their ilk, who also are busy edifying Chavez into what he most patently was not. Yes, Bolivar, I think El Comandante did in fact make himself into a Boivaran for our times. 10755. bhelpuri - 3/6/2013 3:38:54 PM I do not fully endorse this take on Chavez, but admire its ballsiness nonetheless: the biggest problem Venezuela faced during his rule was not that Chávez was authoritarian but that he wasn’t authoritarian enough. It wasn’t too much control that was the problem but too little. 10756. Wombat - 3/6/2013 6:18:56 PM Chavez managed to combine the authoritarianism and personality cult of a Latin American Caudillo with a shallow and erratic form of what passes for third-world socialism these days. His death is no loss to the world, but it will take many Venezuelans decades to realize what a disaster he was to Venezuela, particularly to the people who venerated him.
What struck me as most interesting was the comparative forebearance with which the US treated him and his various provocations. Had he been around in the 70s or 80s.... 10757. Jenerator - 3/6/2013 9:09:08 PM I predict that our Messiah, Obaama, will become friends with the permanent successor - whether it's Maduro or someone else. 10758. arkymalarky - 3/6/2013 9:18:58 PM Do tell. Careful, Jen, your tea party petticoat is showing. 10759. Jenerator - 3/6/2013 11:23:06 PM I'm actually not a member of the Tea Party.
I'm just ready for Reagan-era revolution. We need a true fiscal conservative back. 10760. Wombat - 3/6/2013 11:28:22 PM I guess it will take Jen a long time to recognize what a disaster George W. Bush was to the United States, and what President Obama has been able to get done in the face of the reflexive and irrational opposition of the insane asylum that passes for the Republican Party these days. 10761. Jenerator - 3/7/2013 12:21:07 AM Oh boy. I'm weighing whether or not I want to go down this road.
:) 10762. arkymalarky - 3/7/2013 12:58:14 AM Refer sarcastically to Obama as a messiah and people will naturally assume you're a member, Jen. 10763. bhelpuri - 3/7/2013 9:28:25 AM Wombat,
Chavez was no Lula, but far removed from the caricature you make of him. In his tenure, the number and percentage of Venezuelans living in poverty was halved. That's an immense achievement, which must of course be weighed up against many other failures.
Further, his resolute anti-American attitudes and stance must be judged as one of his strongest attributes. By holding the line the way he did, a potentially robust new set of alliances came into being that have and will benefit his country and the region. Not least is that Latin America as a whole resisted participating in the otherwise widespread (54 countries?) US-backed programme of extraordinary renditions and torture that spread unheeded after 9/11.
There's plenty to commend about Chavez's regime and legacy, just as long as you take into account the copious evidence in the other column! 10764. bhelpuri - 3/7/2013 9:29:21 AM Jenerator's comments are offered as if by rote. To be expected. "Fiscal conservative" here directly equals "white guy." 10765. bhelpuri - 3/7/2013 9:44:23 AM Chavez wasted his money on healthcare when he could have built gigantic skyscrapers. 10766. Wombat - 3/7/2013 4:12:19 PM Bhelpuri,
You are seriously comparing Chavez with Lula?
Chavez has left Venezuela with soaring inflation (which negates the income gained by the poor), lawlessness, a crumbling infrastructure, and failed social programs (70% of his cooperatives set up to help the poor and illiterate have already failed). And instead of skyscrapers, he sank huge sums of money into a new tomb for Simon Bolivar.
Unlike Lula, who actually had an ideological grounding in socialism--and a background as a labor leader and as an elected administrator, Chavez was an ideological dilettante. I do not doubt that that had Venezuela's government been left-of-center, Chavez would have overthrown it and ruled as a nationalist corporatist, with many of the same trappings.
Lula was also a pragmatist, and had the political skill to convince his party members to go along.
I am surprised that you have a such a soft spot for populist leaders in Latin America. They are no more democratic than the regimes they replaced, and because they have personalized their leadership, they do not leave viable political institutions in their place, once they depart.
The anti-American alliance that you praise will not survive them, and frankly, much of it is little more than rhetoric and empty gestures anyway. It's not like Chavez banned petroleum exports to the US. 10767. Jenerator - 3/7/2013 4:53:03 PM Arky,
The guy (Obama) is worshipped by the Left and can do no wrong. At least I can admit that Bush had problems and that he was far from perfect.
All of his demagoguing with regard to the sequester further proves my point.
It's ridiculous.
10768. Jenerator - 3/7/2013 4:53:22 PM Hi Bhelpuri,
Only white men can be fiscal conservatives? 10769. Jenerator - 3/7/2013 5:42:09 PM Wombat.
This is sincere, but how do you wade through the rhetoric on any given issue, like the budget or state of the economy? There is so much contradictory information out there.
Take
this article by Forbes as an example.
"The Bush tax cuts also included a doubling of the child tax credit from $500 per child to $1,000 per child. Because of that, and the 33% cut in the bottom tax rate, nearly 8 million more people dropped off the federal income tax rolls entirely, paying zero federal income taxes. Indeed, under the Bush tax cuts, the bottom 40% of all income earners not only paid no federal income taxes, as a group on net. By 2009, they were being paid cash by the IRS equal to 10% of all federal income taxes.
These Bush tax cuts did not explode the deficit, as Obama and his echo chamber have alleged. By 2007, the deficit was down to $160 billion, less than 15% of Obama’s deficits today. Total federal revenues soared from $793.7 billion in 2003, when the last of the Bush tax cuts were enacted, to $1.16 trillion in 2007, a 47% increase. Capital gains revenues had doubled by 2005, despite the 25% capital gains rate cut adopted in 2003. Federal revenues rose to 18.5% of GDP by 2007, above the long term, postwar, historical average over the prior 60 years. CBO was projecting surpluses to return indefinitely in 2012 through the end of its projection period in 2018."
That's pretty impressive and the complete opposite of what the Obama camp alleges.
So how do you take this into persepctive? Do you just summarily dismiss it? Do you disagree with it because it doesn't match with your personal experiences?
What about this paragraph?
"Bush did increase federal spending as a percent of GDP by one-seventh, erasing the federal spending cuts enacted by the Republican Congressional majorities in the 1990s. But even with that, deficits during the Bush years averaged just 2% of GDP, one-third less than the average over the prior 50 years. President Obama’s deficits have averaged 5 times as much, at 9.1% of GDP"
10770. Jenerator - 3/7/2013 5:42:36 PM That article was written by This was Peter Carrera, and his professional blurb lists the following as his qualifications (again, more impressive than Maddow's - ha!:
"I am Director of Entitlement and Budget Policy for the Heartland Institute, Senior Advisor for Entitlement Reform and Budget Policy at the National Tax Limitation Foundation, General Counsel for the American Civil Rights Union, and Senior Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis. I served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Reagan, and as Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States under President George H.W. Bush. I am a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, and the author most recently of America's Ticking Bankruptcy Bomb (New York: Harper Collins, 2011). I write about new, cutting edge ideas regarding public policy, particularly concerning economics."
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