You guys are missing the real story! Chavez would nationalize Toyota’s factory just so the Chinese could run it. It’s the worst kind of corporate espionage and hostile takeover.

That said, neither Chavez or the Chinese would have a clue on how to run a Toyota factory so it wouldn’t work anyway.

Jeffersonian-Marxist, December 27 at 11:46 pm #

“Obama is a puppet of the oligarchy, only an anti-oligarchic revolution can save USA”

I can’t follow any of your thinking.  Who is this oligarchy we have to revolt against?  Is it a class of people or just a few powerful individuals? 

I just think that America has unresponsive leadership, because the population has shown that they are too lazy and uncommitted to exercise the power that they are given by the Contstitution.

In my opinion, there is nothing that can stand in the way of unified and committed members of a democratic republic.  It is the best form of government in the world, if the citizens take their responsibility seriously.

When is the last time the citizens voted out every incumbent?  There are plenty of good candidates, but the people do not vote for them.  The people always vote for the pretty candidate with the most money behind him, as though that is the measure of a good representative.  The people fall for it every time. 

IF revolution is to come, it can come in the minds of the citizens.  All they have to do is take their responsibility seriously.  It is not like you are asking them to pick up a gun and fight a bloody revolution. 

Your 5 line post is indicative of a population that would rather spend 5 minutes in their living room typing on their computer than spending the effort it takes to live up to their civic responsibility. 

You are powerful.  You are not a victim.  Nobody said freedom, life, liberty, etc. was free.  So get out and work for it. 

See my earlier post.

photoshock, December 25 at 1:05 pm

“For instance did rfidler, know that corporations are legal human beings in the eyes of the law. That’s right! From the Civil War on, corporations have been considered legal people. Not entities of business but real human beings”

Wrong.  Corporations are not human beings.  They are not sovereign members of the republic. They are legal entities, meaning they have their own identity for business, liability and tax purposes only.

Corporations cannot vote, they cannot hold public office, nor do they have any power over the people except that which the people willingly give them by purchasing their products.

This is why there must be robust competition, so that no one corporation can dominate.  If the people want to put a corporation out of commission, all they have to do is stop buying their product.  Simple as that.

But the people are fat and lazy.  They elect the pretty politicians with the most money.  They buy the products of the corporations which advertise the most.  In short, the people keep themselves in their absurd condition of bondage to money. 

The people like to entertain themselves with their “toys”, so they abandon their civic responsibilities for the lure of entertainment.  Then they cry and moan that those evil corporations made them buy their products.  They forced them to get credit cards, and 401k’s and big SUV’s and every electronic toy under the sun. 

That is the victim mentality of the left. 

Yes, wake up for sure.  Take charge of your life.  If you see a corporation abusing its position, do not do business with them.  Elect the politician with the least money, the one who does not take corporate money or have corporate ties.  Was it a secret that Obama was tied to the money of George Soros and others?  Was that some kind of big secret?  Was it a secret that Bush was tied to oil?  Was that a secret? 

Americans like to be victims.  Nothing is their own fault.  It is all those evil people who make them do things.  Flip Wilson, “The devil made me do it”

Be a man, be an individual, do what is right, give up your entertainments, your credit cards, your mortgages, your car payments, your 401k’s.  Buy land and build your own house like the real men did years ago.  Pay cash for an older model inexpensive car until you can afford a better one.  Give up your expensive drug habits, and your expensive pornography habits, and your electronic toys and your unhealthy, fattening, expensive junk food, and your cigarettes and your booze, and your computers. 

You suck up to those who provide your substinence and entertainment, and then blame them for doing it, as though you are a victim of them. 

No one has power over you.  But it is your own ignorance and laziness which has rendered you powerless and a victim.

rfidler, must be reading some other history book, for their are many if not most of the S.A. leaders that were for the people, not the multi-national corporations, especially, oil and fruit, that have contracted with the CIA to exterminate the native population, and deliberately without so much as an afterthought kill and murder any leader that shows signs of being for the people.
As for names, I suggest that he read old copies of the NYT, for the names too numerous too mention of assassinated leaders of South American countries, other than those despotic and American friendly regimes that work extra hard at exterminating the indigenous populations of those countries.
What is needed in America is what is happening in most of the countries in South America, soft revolution that denies the multi-national corporations that run this country that power they think is theirs. For instance did rfidler, know that corporations are legal human beings in the eyes of the law. That’s right! From the Civil War on, corporations have been considered legal people. Not entities of business but real human beings.
How can this be? Simply put the minimal corporations that existed during the last half of the 19th Century
bought and paid for a legal ruling from the Supreme Court of the US and simply stated it gives person-hood status to corporations.
This was the beginning of the end for the people of this country. We are now economic wage slaves and cannot change the status quo unless and until the people, the true government of the United States of America rise up and again take back the power that we had under Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln.
They were presidents who fought against the Centralized Banking system and won in their time.
Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers understood this concept and in the Constitution gave the power to mint coinage based upon Gold and Silver to the Congress not the Federal Reserve Banking system, a private for-profit corporation that controls the monetary system now.
Rise up Americans! Wake up NOW! We are no longer a Democratic Republic, but a corporatocracy, run by men not elected and not answerable to the true government of the United States, the people.

A Decade of Propaganda? The BBC’s Reporting of Venezuela.

Researchers at the University of the West of England, UK, have exposed ongoing and systematic bias in the BBC’s news reporting on Venezuela. Dr Lee Salter and Dr Dave Weltman analysed ten years of BBC reports on Venezuela since the first election of Hugo Chavez to the presidency in an ongoing research project, and their findings so far show that the BBC’s reporting falls short of its legal commitment to impartiality, truth and accuracy.

The researchers looked at 304 BBC reports published between 1998 and 2008 and found that only 3 of those articles mentioned any of the positive policies introduced by the Chavez administration. The BBC has failed to report adequately on any of the democratic initiatives, human rights legislation, food programmes, healthcare initiatives, or poverty reduction programmes. Mission Robinson, the greatest literacy programme in human history received only a passing mention.

Whodunnit?
MASS UPRISING DEFEATS CIA COUP IN VENEZUELA

Couple of interesting articles on Chavez:

“The current economic expansion began when the government got control over the national oil company in the first quarter of 2003.

Since then, real (inflation-adjusted) GDP has nearly
doubled, growing by 94.7 percent in 5.25 years, or 13.5 percent annually.

Most of this growth has been in the non-oil sector of the economy, and the private sector has grown faster than the public sector.
During the current economic expansion, the poverty rate has been cut by more than half, from 54 percent of households in the first half of 2003 to 26 percent at the end of 2008.

Extreme poverty has fallen even more, by 72 percent. These poverty rates measure only cash income, and do not take into account increased access to health care or education.

Over the entire decade, the percentage of households in poverty has been reduced by 39 percent, and extreme poverty by more than half.

Inequality, as measured by the Gini index, has also fallen substantially. The index has fallen to 41 in 2008, from 48.1 in 2003 and 47 in 1999. This represents a large reduction in
inequality.

Real (inflation-adjusted) social spending per person more than tripled from 1998-2006.

From 1998-2006, infant mortality has fallen by more than one-third. The number of primary care physicians in the public sector increased 12-fold from 1999-2007, providing health care to millions of Venezuelans who previously did not have access.

There have been substantial gains in education, especially higher education, where gross enrollment rates more than doubled from 1999-2000 to 2007-2008.

The labor market also improved substantially over the last decade, with unemployment dropping from 11.3 percent to 7.8 percent. During the current expansion it has fallen by
more than half. Other labor market indicators also show substantial gains.

Over the past decade, the number of social security beneficiaries has more than doubled.

Over the decade, the government’s total public debt has fallen from 30.7 to 14.3 percent of GDP. The foreign public debt has fallen even more, from 25.6 to 9.8 percent of GDP.

Inflation is about where it was 10 years ago, ending the year at 31.4 percent. However it has been falling over the last half year (as measured by three-month averages) and is likely to
continue declining this year in the face of strong deflationary pressures worldwide.
Source
Center for Economic and Policy Research
1611 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 400
Washington, D.C. 20009
202-293-5380
(The CEPR advisory board includes Nobel Laureate economists Robert Solow and Joseph Stiglitz; plus Janet Gornick, Professor at the CUNY Graduate School and Director of the Luxembourg Income Study; Richard Freeman, Professor of Economics at Harvard University; and Eileen Appelbaum, Professor and Director of the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University. “

See also
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/25608

rfidler’s not back with a response yet.  Must be
looking up “Salvador Allende” on wikipedia.  Not a lot
of libraries in a state like North Carolina, I guess.

http://theunpeople.blogspot.com/

rfidler:

Thank you for visiting that blog.  Visit regularly and
you might learn something.  You might even open your
little mind a bit.

“Name a South American “leader” assassinated by the
US.” - Have you, during your in-depth study of world
history (that means the whole world, not just the US),
ever come across the name “Salvador Allende”?
http://theunpeople.blogspot.com/

FRTothus:

“Expecting Mary Ann to have a source is absurd.”

That pretty much sums up progressive standards of debate now doesn’t it?

If I were to say that communism/socialism/progressivism has caused endless misery to millions of people, you would demand that I prove my charge.

EJH: Checked your link. Not a word on South America, only anti-Zionist crap. Name a South American “leader” assassinated by the US. If, if, if.

What IF Obama nuked Iran? If, if, if.

Shut up.

That’s right Henry09.  Those taxpayer-subsidized corporations don’t owe anyone anything… even their workers.  They shouldn’t have to worry about the mess they leave behind, or paying taxes, or paying wages. Medical insurance?  Pensions?  Ha! What age are you living in, pal? Badges?!?  We don’t need no stinking badges!

Rfidler, is there nothing short of an assassination that would allow you to believe that sabotage isn’t already occurring, just it has with Cuba, and countless other countries?  Would you allow that perhaps the US prefers to wage a strangling economic war, coupled with wild accusations in the corporate press so the American people will pay for the intimidation, and, when the time is right, invade, for the oil if nothing else works?

Expecting Mary Ann to have a source is absurd. Such operations are not publicized.  All she or anyone else has to go on is past behavior, which strongly suggests that if the US were NOT involved in sabotage within Venezuela, it would be an anomoly.

“The boys of capital, they ... chortle in their martinis about the death of socialism. The word has been banned from polite conversation. And they hope that no one will notice that every socialist experiment of any significance in the twentieth century-without exception-has either been crushed, overthrown, or invaded, or corrupted, perverted, subverted, or destabilized, or otherwise had life made impossible for it, by the United States. Not one socialist government or movement-from the Russian Revolution to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, from Communist China to the EMLN in [El] Salvador-not one was permitted to rise or fall solely on its own merits; not one was left secure enough to drop its guard against the all-powerful enemy abroad and freely and fully relax control at home.”
(William Blum)

“It is firm and continuing policy that [the democratically elected government of] Allende be overthrown by a coup…. We are to continue to generate maximum pressure toward this end utilizing every appropriate resource. It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG [United States Government] and American hands be well hidden.”
October 1970 cable to CIA operatives in Chile from (Henry Kissinger’s “Track Two” group)

“The U.S. public is depoliticized, poorly informed on foreign affairs ... and strongly patriotic in the face of a struggle with “another Hitler”. Even though the public is normally averse to war, even with modest propaganda efforts ... the public can be quickly transformed into enthusiastic supporters of war.”
(Edward S. Herman)

“There are too many things that embarrass Americans in that report. ... they are asked to believe that their country has been evil. And nobody wants to believe that.”
(Congressman Otis Pike, 1975, about a Congressional report on CIA activities around the world)

“As the mainstream media has become increasingly dependent on advertising revenues for support, it has become an anti-democratic force in society.”
(Robert McChesney)

“It is the function of the CIA to keep the world unstable and to propagandize the American people to hate, so we will let the establishment spend any amount of money on arms.”
(John Stockwell)

“The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media.”
(Former CIA Director William Colby)

rfidler

Sources are unnecessary when we can look to history. 
If the US government were to assassinate a South
American leader and overthrow a government, it would be
far from the first time.
http://theunpeople.blogspot.com/

Mary Ann:

And your source for this is…..?

At this very moment, plans to assassinate Chavez and destroy his government are once again receiving intense scrutiny in the darkest back rooms of Obamatown.

Thong-girl:

If the US is so powerful in Latin America, why is Chavez still alive?

Also, I can’t wait to see how his new chain of “socialist” stores work out. $14.00 cellphones?

In other posts on other subjects on truthdig, a poster named gerard mourns the death of language. Your “economic genocide and slavery” is a perfect example.

Chavez is at least applying a strong hand to these corporate entities, unlike here where they run the show. Everyone likes to bash Chavez while ignoring serious human rights abusers in Mexico and Colombia.

Toyota, Ford, GM, etc., should just leave Venezuela. They really don’t need to be in Venezuela anyway. That’s what people like Chavez forget. Nobody has to start a company or invest in one, they do it voluntarily, and companies that do exist don’t have to locate themselves in your community. Those companies owe Chavez nothing.

That said, GM probably wouldn’t be there at all if our corporate welfare government didn’t bail them out.

What’s your point, that Chavez will anything to keep his position strong and Venezuela liquid?  The U.S. has just successfully acquired Honduras, we occupy every single country from Columbia north, both with military and CIA. Under the pretense of drug eradication agreements, which are not agreements, we maintain a drug economy with these countries and allow our military profit from the enterprise.  Why would you consider Chavez wrong to what he can to protect himself?  There is nothing he can do to combat what the Pentagon and Congress have done all the way through Latin America.  It’s economic genocide and slavery, depending on how the Latin Lords obey the gringo masters.