Elsewhere (204)
Nicholas Casey on Venezuela’s end-stage socialism:
Hundreds of people here in the city of Cumaná… marched on a supermarket, screaming for food. They forced open a large metal gate and poured inside. They snatched water, flour, cornmeal, salt, sugar, potatoes, anything they could find, leaving behind only broken freezers and overturned shelves. They showed that even in a country with the largest oil reserves in the world, it is possible for people to riot because there is not enough food… Economists say years of economic mismanagement… have shattered the food supply. Sugar fields in the country’s agricultural centre lie fallow for lack of fertilisers. Unused machinery rots in shuttered state-owned factories…
In response, President Nicolás Maduro has tightened his grip over the food supply. Using emergency decrees he signed this year, the president put most food distribution in the hands of a group of citizen brigades loyal to leftists, a measure critics say is reminiscent of food rationing in Cuba. “They’re saying, in other words, you get food if you’re my friend, if you’re my sympathizer,” said Roberto Briceño-León, the director of the Venezuelan Violence Observatory, a human rights group.
Readers may recall this video of a Moscow supermarket circa 1990, in which shoppers are clearly both thrilled and morally elevated by the egalitarian retail experience. Taking turns to smell the one piece of grey meat available, and then leaving it where it is, was, I’m assured, a way for the proletariat to celebrate the obvious superiority of socialism.
About a third of the students who go to the farms [for a month of state-mandated rice-planting duty] get out of about half the work because they work as informers for the government.
And Douglas Murray on Europe’s migrant avalanche:
Most of the people coming to Europe who came in the last year are not refugees, they are economic migrants; they are seeking a better life. Now, Europe cannot be the place where everybody in the world who wants to seek a better life is allowed to come and settle. It’s not possible for economic reasons; it’s not possible for geographical reasons; it’s not possible for housing and welfare reasons, and it’s not possible for cultural reasons… How do we know that most of the people who are coming are not even legitimate refugees? We know it because no less a source than the European Commission itself has now told us as much. Earlier this year in an interview, Frans Timmermans, the European Commission Vice President, admitted that in his estimate at least sixty percent of the people who came to Europe last year have no more right to be here than anybody else.
Feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.
Taking turns to smell the one piece of grey meat available, and then leaving it where it is, was, I’m assured, a way for the proletariat to celebrate the obvious superiority of socialism.
Capitalist propaganda! I counted at least nine pieces of grey meat to sniff and put back.
I denounce myself.
Vin Scully, Los Angeles Dodgers baseball announcer comments on Venezuelan socialism and provides a cogent analysis of same during a three-pitch at-bat.
In other, shocking news, noted Australian feminist Clementine Ford appears to have double standards.
I sometimes suspect there isn’t quite enough food to go round, as evidenced by poor Islingtoners reduced to having to eat Quinoa, the staple diet of impoverished areas of South America.
I’m waiting for a hot take from Sean Penn or Oliver Stone on current conditions in Venezuela.
The comments are interesting.It’s not the fault of Socialism at all.It’s the fault of Oil or Capitalism or Corporations or Donald Trump or the Republican Party or The Koch Brothers or Space Aliens or something. Apparently.
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A bottle cap also works.
About a third of the students who go to the farms [for a month of state-mandated rice-planting duty] get out of about half the work because they work as informers for the government.
There is a very good film from 2006 called The Lives of Others about the Stasi spying on writers and actors in the former East Germany. At the beginning of the film it says that the actual numbers of Stasi were relatively few, but they relied on a network of informers which numbered in the tens of thousands (it might even have been hundreds of thousands). Seconds after I cursed the Germans for being such jack-bastards and deserving of Communist oppression if they were willing to inform on each other in such numbers, I realised that the situation would not be much different in the UK. It doesn’t take much effort to identify which of our contemporary commentators would be quite happy to inform on their fellow citizens in order to curry favour with the authorities and/or ensure their particular brand of politics is advanced and wrongful thoughts punished.
@Tim Newman/
IIRC, towards the very end when the Berlin Wall fell, once secret Stasi documents/records were exposed, it was revealed that approx ONE THIRD of the ENTIRE POPULATION of the GDR were employed by the State in informing on each other–a statistic that boggled even this old (72) world weary cynical mind. (And I’ve got a PhD in IR specializing in European/Russian systems!)
@ virgil xenophon,
There comes a point when such a high percentage of a population is willing to sell out the rest that you kind of just think “to hell with the lot of them”.
There comes a point when such a high percentage of a population is willing to sell out the rest that you kind of just think “to hell with the lot of them”.
Or, as Margaret Thatcher would have put it, the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of people to inform on.
Oh, I dunno, Hedgehog. Solzhenitsyn reckoned they spent a good amount of time spying on each other.
The comments are interesting.It’s not the fault of Socialism at all.It’s the fault of Oil or Capitalism or Corporations or Donald Trump or the Republican Party or The Koch Brothers or Space Aliens or something. Apparently.
That has always amazed me. Every time socialism fails (and it fails every time), there are always leftist idiots (but I repeat myself) who blame capitalism or other external or internal enemies. Even in the case of the USSR, this was a standard talking point on the left. The question that never gets answered is, if socialism is such a superior way to organize a society, how come it can’t defeat these enemies? On one hand, socialism is the way of the future; on the other hand, the retrograde and reactionary system known as capitalism always seems to win the battle. The cognitive dissonance must make leftists’ minds reel.
Solzhenitsyn reckoned they spent a good amount of time spying on each other.
Yes, people will always sell something. In a capitalist or free market system, they will sell their labor or the fruits of their labor. In a system that forbids the selling of their labor, they will sell each other. That’s what the left calls progress.
When identity politics meets anti-social narcissism, part 948.
“…at least sixty percent of the people who came to Europe last year have no more right to be here than anybody else.”
Bit late now, isn’t it?
Soros smiles.
I realised that the situation would not be much different in the UK.
Or the U.S. for that matter. It starts early with school children being asked by teachers to talk about what goes on in the home, i.e. things like smoking or gun ownership, or religious practice or elections, where kids tend to repeat what Mom and Dad say around the dinner table. Under Obamacare and its electronic medical records mandate(s) every pediatrician asks children multiple questions about firearms in the home during those “free” annual physicals. Children are so trusting that they don’t realize the person asking the questions has an ulterior motive. Once the kids learn they are rewarded in some fashion for talking about (informing on) Mom and Dad, the rest becomes easy.
Bit late now, isn’t it?
Simon Schama could not be reached for comment.
I should add to the above, that teachers, school counselors, and medical professionals are defined as “mandatory reporters” for investigating potential child abuse and neglect, where the terms “abuse” and “neglect” have been broadened over the years to include virtually anything the reporter feels is problematic. Thus, if a child tells his teacher or pediatrician that dad as a lot of guns, for example, that information could well wind up in a state data base and lead to a visit from child protection services.
BTW, Das Leben der Anderen is very well done. The subtitles to not do the dialog justice. My spouse shows it to her language classes to disabuse them of the “glories” of living in a socialist state. Another good German film with similar themes is Barbara. It’s worth a spot in one’s Netflix cue.
They voted for poverty and theft,(other people’s poverty caused by their socialist theft), but got poverty for themselves.
No tears from me.
They voted for theft, and now they are going hungry.
By the way, may I mention a “special kind of hell” experienced by some brave and fearless modern women?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/style/bikini-shopping-is-a-special-kind-of-hell—so-heres-how-to-do-i/
And that’s what it’s really about now, isn’t it? Along with the torture of language, natch.
may I mention a “special kind of hell” experienced by some brave and fearless modern women?
It’s strange how articles of this kind sound like they’re written by particularly insecure teenage girls, rather than grown women. I mean, if your “sense of worth” is catastrophically undermined by an advert for a bikini, the problem almost certainly isn’t the advert.
They voted for theft, and now they are going hungry.
Don’t know where you’re calling in from, Stan, but here in the good old US of A we have an erstwhile potential candidate for the presidency, the ineffable Bernie Sanders, who got a sizable portion of the Democratic primary vote by advocating the policies that got Venezuela to where they are, we have an as-yet-unindicted official candidate for the presidency who is leading in the polls and who is apparently seriously considering adding the no less kooky Elizabeth Warren to her ticket, we have a mayor of New York City who is a Sandinista, and we have a not insignificant portion of the population who believes that the failures of socialism are due (see above) to the nefarious influence of capitalism, Big Oil, the Koch brothers, Donald Trump, etc… So we may be only a few votes away from the Venezuela outcome. Of course it can then be said that we deserve it, too, but that won’t be much of a consolation.
Re the special kind of hell experienced by these bikini shoppers: and that’s in the Telegraph, no less. Just imagine what the Guardian could do with this.
R.Sherman,
Ah, mandatory reporters. Yes.
One time after my 7 year old had been hiding in the restroom again at school during class, I had a nice discussion with a 30-something counselor lady about it. (Pricey private school, BTW.) During which I demonstrated my technique for regaining his attention when I was trying to have a serious conversation with him (to the extent such a thing is possible with a 7 year old). Viz: a light tap on the cheekbones with two fingers, which I demonstrated on my own face.
Two days later I got a call from County Child Protective Services about it. Nice counselor lady had reported me as a potential abuser. I related a true account of the incident to the CPS agent, who said my account agreed exactly with Nice Counselor Lady’s. “But you know we have to check up on every report we get.”
So, NFA (no further action).
But my name is On File.
Guess what lessons I learned from this?
It’s strange how articles of this kind sound like they’re written by particularly insecure teenage girls, rather than grown women.
I think there is an insecure teenage girl in most if not all women. There certainly is one inside my wife. The teenage girl in question is a leggy eighteen-year old with an impish sense of humor who gets excited about little things and who doesn’t always seem to fully understand why men are attentive to her.
Believe me, David, there is nothing wrong with an insecure teenage girl inside a grown woman, as long as it’s the right kind of insecure teenage girl.
Kid’s old enough now to have his own kids if he was so minded. Wonder if my guilt will adhere to following generations. Perhaps unto the seventh?
‘Hundreds of migrants shouting “f*** the UK” have stormed the roads in and around Calais and hurled rocks at British motorists in a desperate attempt to reach the UK before Britons decide whether or not to leave the EU.’
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/681614/Calais-migrants-refugees-Britain-UK-EU-referendum-Brexit-Euro-2016
Believe me, David, there is nothing wrong with an insecure teenage girl inside a grown woman, as long as it’s the right kind of insecure teenage girl.
I’ll happily defer to your greater knowledge.
Believe me, David, there is nothing wrong with an insecure teenage girl inside a grown woman, as long as it’s the right kind of insecure teenage girl.
My wife has a mental eight year old inside of her. It makes her a lot of fun to be around, as well as exceptionally annoying.
Hundreds of migrants shouting “f*** the UK” have stormed the roads in and around Calais and hurled rocks at British motorists
Imagine how they’d enrich a neighbourhood near you.
identity politics meets anti-social narcissism
Identity politics is anti-social narcissism.
It makes her a lot of fun to be around, as well as exceptionally annoying.
Undoubtedly. But isn’t that why we marry them in the first place?
That quote isn’t from de Tocqueville, actually. Nor is it from Alexander Tytler, the other person to whom it’s usually attributed. It also doesn’t seem to be true in the general case.
Hundreds of migrants shouting “f*** the UK” have stormed the roads in and around Calais and hurled rocks at British motorists
#FirstImpressions.
as evidenced by poor Islingtoners reduced to having to eat Quinoa, the staple diet of impoverished areas of South America.
Quinoa is more altiplano stuff: Bolivia and Peru. Venezuelans eat AREPAS, pues, thick corn tortillas that you put lots of stuff on (though I like butter and cheese, myself), and in general it’s a Caribbean diet with frijoles y arroz, beef, potatoes, yucca, chicken, etc.
This arepa mix is the staple (besides rice & beans) for Venezuelans.
Solzhenitsyn reckoned they spent a good amount of time spying on each other.
The fastest way to make sure you don’t end up in the gulag is to send someone else there. It’s exactly the same dynamic as calling someone racist to deflect suspicion from yourself.
I’m sure some got immense pleasure from “disappearing” their neighbors: for others it was the easiest way to not get that 3am bang on the door.
Fear and spite: two bottomless pits of human motivation.
Quinoa is more altiplano stuff: Bolivia and Peru. Venezuelans eat AREPAS, pues, thick corn tortillas that you put lots of stuff on (though I like butter and cheese, myself), and in general it’s a Caribbean diet with frijoles y arroz, beef, potatoes, yucca, chicken, etc.
David Thompson’s Blog: Come for the links and commentary; stay for the culinary anthropology. [Insert Smiley Thing Here]
Any woman who is traumatized by the thought of wearing a bikini can wear one of these: http://www.fullbeauty.com/Plus-Size-Swimdresses.aspx?DeptId=20420
or
STFU
One or the other, ladies. The rest of us don’t give a rip about your body image issues.
Fear and spite: two bottomless pits of human motivation.
As if on cue:
For some people, no pettiness is too embarrassing.
For some people, no pettiness is too embarrassing.
There’s no question the suspension is based upon the club’s political viewpoint. As such, it clearly violates the First Amendment, inasmuch as UCI is a state institution. FIRE will file a lawsuit which the university will lose at a cost of multiple thousands of dollars in taxpayer money. These people know this will happen, but that doesn’t concern them. The process is punishment, and they believe that eventually they will win when people stop trying to express something other than the approved orthodoxy. What’s scary is not the suspension of the club, however. Rather, it is the likelihood that the names of the club members have been circulated to faculty for purposes of punishment in class grades and the like outside the review process.
They voted for theft, and now they are going hungry.
They’d have voted the Socialists out long ago if real voting was permitted. However, between actual rigging of the vote and intimidation to ensure no stable opposition can form, they don’t really get a free vote.
There’s no country with a full socialist government for any length of time in a real democracy.
Golly, the world seems to be decaying at a rapidly increasing rate, even more so in leftist societies.
I wonder what would happen if a certain idea was put into practice, namely to treat others as you would want to be treated?
If we can cope with it, here’s Milo Y again. Talking very honestly outdoors in the rain in Alaska (the rain is a nice touch) about the EU referendum, and what it means to him. Sad that we’ve come to this.
The Social Justice Jacobin movement known as Atheism+ has apparently entered its Terror phase. The same people who claimed to see sexists, rapists and misogynists in every shadow and under every bed are turning out to be the very villains they were chasing. I bet you’re as shocked as I am!
Some nice public shaming from the Skepticon SJWs: https://skepticon.org/keeping-skepticon-safe-richard-carrier-to-be-banned/
Check out the ‘about’ page and ‘photo gallery’ to see what you’re missing out on.
Seems to be a lot of pre-judging and uncritical thinking in regards to that skeezy prof though. As I just did then, I suppose. But I never said I was smart like they do.