PDA

View Full Version : GuyFawkes and Chavez



xu2006
04-27-2010, 02:04 PM
Good news, Guy! You'll soon be able to follow Hugo Chavez on twitter. I'm sure he'll have some insightful tweets to share, too.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/7637168/Hugo-Chavez-to-join-Twitter.html

GuyFawkes38
04-27-2010, 04:50 PM
I hope he actually tweets and doesn't delegate the work to his press secretary.

Actually, I can kind of see that happening. If your a dictator, I bet your less concerned about bad press from a drunken tweet.

GuyFawkes38
05-09-2010, 01:36 AM
I was really hoping that since Chavez is a dictator, he would be confident enough to tweet openly to the public. I envisioned a lot of fun drunk tweets. Also, I genuinely wonder type of TV shows he likes. Is he a fan of NBC's Thursday night line up? What's his opinion on Fox's "House" and how does that relate to his view on the American health care system?

Instead, it appears that Chavez hired a group of 200 people to manage his twitter account:



Since then, Chavez says, he has been overwhelmed by nearly 54,000 messages from supporters, critics and people writing to ask for help with a problem or lodge a complaint. On Thursday, he announced that a new team of 200 aides would help him manage the stream.

"I'm creating a team due to the avalanche of requests, and some grievances," he said.

Opposition lawmaker Juan Jose Molina said he was not surprised by Chavez's ability to attract a crowd in cyberspace, but he thinks the president should spend less time tweeting and more time working to reduce soaring inflation and violent crime.

For the record, I disagree with the last paragraph. Twitter is an awesome tool.

Snipe
05-09-2010, 05:11 PM
I think anyone with a twitter account should send Hugo a message that socialism doesn't work. Inflation in his country is over 30% and unemployment is high. He has run that economy into the ground and put an enormous amount of people back into poverty.

GuyFawkes38
05-09-2010, 05:44 PM
Come on Snipe. He uses Twitter. He must be a nice guy.

But yeah, 30% inflation....crazy.

Kahns Krazy
05-10-2010, 01:38 PM
For the record, I (...)is a(...) tool.

No argument here.

boozehound
05-10-2010, 01:52 PM
I think anyone with a twitter account should send Hugo a message that socialism doesn't work. Inflation in his country is over 30% and unemployment is high. He has run that economy into the ground and put an enormous amount of people back into poverty.

I agree that Socialism doesn't work, but is the Venezuelan government really a Socialist regime? It strikes me more as a dictatorship run under the auspice of being a Socialist government.

In the end, I guess that it doesn't matter what you call the government, I think any country with that nutbag running it is going to be screwed.

Snipe
05-10-2010, 10:32 PM
I agree that Socialism doesn't work, but is the Venezuelan government really a Socialist regime? It strikes me more as a dictatorship run under the auspice of being a Socialist government.

In the end, I guess that it doesn't matter what you call the government, I think any country with that nutbag running it is going to be screwed.

Was the USSR really a communist regime? Wouldn't they strike you more like a dictatorship as well? China still considers itself a communist country. But what really makes them communist? What is the difference between communist China and socialist Venezuela? China has been doing much better with market reforms and Venezuela is suffering 30+% inflation and the economy is being decimated. But that isn't ideology. The free market reforms in China are only because China hit the wall and tens of millions died under starvation under the "next step forward" reforms done under Mao. All three are left leaning ideologies that go against freedom of the individual.

Chavez calls himself a socialist and he calls Venezuela a socialist country.

The Socialist Party magazine, Socialism Today considers him a socialist (http://www.socialismtoday.org/90/venezuela.html).

From wiki:


The United Socialist Party of Venezuela (Spanish: Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela, PSUV) is the name of a socialist political party in Venezuela which resulted from the fusion of some of the political and social forces that support the Bolivarian Revolution led by incumbent President Hugo Chávez. It is the current ruling party of the country and the largest left-wing party in Latin America and the Western Hemisphere.

Manuel Rosales (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Rosales)came in second to Hugo Chavez in the last election. He is a socialist too. When the guy who comes in first is a self proclaimed socialist, and the guy that comes in second is a socialist, it is safe to say it is a socialist country in some respect. I am sure that some socialists think that socialism is pure and that these guys just took advantage of people and are not "real" socialists.

You make a great point though. Once you give The State enough power, what is the difference between socialism and a dictatorship? For that matter, what is the difference between communism and a dictatorship? What is the difference between facism and a dictatorship? It is hard to give precise definitions of socialism, communism and facism when they go to the extreme, but they all involve a totalitarian state. In communism the state owns the "means of production", in facism they are privately owned but regulated and directed to the will of the state. Socialism seems to be a mix of the two, with the government taking over some industries while directing and regulating the others.

boozehound
05-11-2010, 07:01 AM
Was the USSR really a communist regime? Wouldn't they strike you more like a dictatorship as well? China still considers itself a communist country. But what really makes them communist? What is the difference between communist China and socialist Venezuela? China has been doing much better with market reforms and Venezuela is suffering 30+% inflation and the economy is being decimated. But that isn't ideology. The free market reforms in China are only because China hit the wall and tens of millions died under starvation under the "next step forward" reforms done under Mao. All three are left leaning ideologies that go against freedom of the individual.

Chavez calls himself a socialist and he calls Venezuela a socialist country.

The Socialist Party magazine, Socialism Today considers him a socialist (http://www.socialismtoday.org/90/venezuela.html).

From wiki:



Manuel Rosales (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Rosales)came in second to Hugo Chavez in the last election. He is a socialist too. When the guy who comes in first is a self proclaimed socialist, and the guy that comes in second is a socialist, it is safe to say it is a socialist country in some respect. I am sure that some socialists think that socialism is pure and that these guys just took advantage of people and are not "real" socialists.

You make a great point though. Once you give The State enough power, what is the difference between socialism and a dictatorship? For that matter, what is the difference between communism and a dictatorship? What is the difference between facism and a dictatorship? It is hard to give precise definitions of socialism, communism and facism when they go to the extreme, but they all involve a totalitarian state. In communism the state owns the "means of production", in facism they are privately owned but regulated and directed to the will of the state. Socialism seems to be a mix of the two, with the government taking over some industries while directing and regulating the others.


That is more what I was getting at. I know that they call themselves Socialists, but I don't see much difference between Socialist Venezuela and Communits Russia, or any one of a number of facist dictatorships in South America or throughout the world. Calling yourself a Socialist sounds a lot better than calling your party the Communist party or calling yourself a facist dictator.