Venezuela

This socialist will Roses. C?

Will the far left ? No.

The rise of Corbyn is so like the rise of Trump, frightening thought

Will Corbyn ever be able to say that the terrible state of affairs going on in Venezuela is rotten and cease to give it his blessing?
Will Socialists in the UK do so as well...... I won't hold my breath.

And having read dj's last post on the Government Watch 2 thread I think that my last sentence above is not far wrong...

Setting aside the current problems in Venezuela I fail to see how the mildly socialist policies of the Labour Party are likely to result in a 'Venezuela' type situation in the UK.

Firstly, Britain has a mature and stable democracy which has survived other 'socialist' initiatives such as the creation of the NHS, nationalisation of key services and industries (rail, road transport, utilities etc; not to mention the Royal Mail which was run from its inception as a national service). Whereas Venezuela has only been a nominal 'democracy' since the late 1950s, having previously been controlled by a series of military dictatorships.

The British constitution, unwritten and imperfect as it may be, has developed over 300 years. Even contemporary attempts to circumvent it have proved to be difficult as it is based on the rule of law, upheld by an independent judiciary and the separation of legislative and executive power exercised through a sovereign parliament.

It would be very hard for a would be dictator to circumvent this system, unless they had the willing acquiescence of the greater part of the population ; a population, indeed, willing to resort to, or consent to, violence should the dictator's powers be threatened (one of the inherent dangers of populism and a very sound reason for supporting the principle of parliamentary democracy).

Venezuela is not a mature democracy in any sense.

Above all, Venezuela is subject to massive corruption; it's ranked among the most corrupt countries in the world. While we might be able to cite instances of corruption in Britain and other developed countries they are on nothing like the scale of Venezuelan corruption. It is reckoned that a huge part of their wealth from oil has disappeared as a result of corruption; far from being dissipated in spending on socialist 'public expenditure' it has disappeared into the pockets of members of the regime and their associates. Can anyone, in all honesty, see corruption on such an industrial scale happening in Britain? (Though, on reflection I think that we do tolerate a degree of Right Wing corruption that positively harms our economy, bankers bonuses, money going to tax havens, tax evasion by global companies etc)

In short, I think that thinking that Britain could become like Venezuela under Corbyn is quite unrealistic. I think that continuing to be run by neo-liberal policies, coupled with the shock of Brexit, is far more likely to produce a Venezuelan result..

Seamus Milne is hardly neutral on Venezuela.

Extreme poverty going from 23.4% to 8.5% nothing special?
Oh well. Whatever.
We'd probably be quite pleased with child poverty at 8.5% in this country now.
30% of Britain's children now classified as poor.

Jen, the Economist didn't think it was anything special, simply on par with what was happening in the region (where other countries didn't have the oil revenue)
Perhaps the right question is why was the 'success' simply average, given the wealth of the natural resources.

And every possibility the next PM of this country wants to run this country as Castro,Chavez and Modura did/does.

Venezuela key indicators.

So what was Venezuela like before Chavez?

Hells bells Venezuela has been a mess for years both whilst Hugo Chavez was alive and now even more so since Nicolas Moduro took office.

What was perhaps not expected, even by the likes of Corbyn /McDonnell/Abbot is the lengths of violence Moduro has taken against his people . Mind you many others will be surprised by it to be honest.

There have been enough threads/posts that have spoken about Castro/Chavez/Maduro on GN I remember this one in June 2016.

www.gransnet.com/forums/news_and_politics/a1227066-Dreadful-situation-in-Venezuela
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This is from the Independent in 2013 !!

' Mr Maduro's stunningly close victory came after a campaign in which he promised to carry on Mr Chavez's self-proclaimed socialist revolution, while Mr Capriles declared that the Chavez regime put Venezuela on the road to ruin.'

Mr Capriles' main campaign weapon was to simply emphasise "the incompetence of the state" in handling the world's largest oil reserves.

Millions of Venezuelans were lifted out of poverty under Mr Chavez, but many also believe his government not only squandered, but plundered, much of the one trillion dollars in oil revenues during his tenure.

Venezuelans are afflicted by chronic power cuts, crumbling infrastructure, unfinished public works projects, double-digit inflation, food and medicine shortages and rampant crime - one of the world's highest murdere and kidnapping rates - that the opposition said worsened after Mr Chavez died on March 5.

That discontent was thick across the nation."

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/hugo-chavezs-successor-nicolas-maduro-wins-venezuela-election-in-highly-contested-result-8572750.html
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It will always be the case some who have feted the likes of Castro/Chavez and Moduro, those who have praised them and their Socialist Governments will continue to do so. They will apportion blame for all the woes of Venezuela onto other individuals, nations and organizations but at the end of the day Moduro is the one to take the blame for HIS actions.

Heaven help us all if that is Corbyn's idea of socialism!!

Although, even if that is benign, that would probably be just a heartbeat away from McDonnell's form of socialism.

When governments turn rogue ( as in Venezuela) it is quite ridiculous and offensive to find that some posters on here ( very few thankfully) try and defend them just because they call themselves a Socialist government, while murdering and arresting and beating their own people.

Is Corbyn a hypocrite Jen, this labour leader who stabbed grass roots members in the back, who supported the IRA, who is self declared friend of .hamas , who refused to take part in tv debates during the referendum campaign

Sorry, Jen, I was talking about Corbyn. Why would he congratulate them? I mean, it's OK to talk about him without framing his decisions in the context of someone else - he's his own person, right?

Dubious human rights record?

www.hrw.org/news/2017/06/09/theresa-may-should-defend-not-denigrate-human-rights

Is May not a hypocrite, Annie?

Why would Corbyn congratulate a government with a dubious human rights record?

He didn't condemn the monry given to the IRA did he? Jen carry on defending him, I will continue continue to post mt opinions of him, he is a hypocrite

I didn't accuse you of hypocrisy, I accused May of it.

You know very well that Corbyn is against selling arms, and always has been, so why do you say he doesn't condemn the Venezuelan government?
You know all the anti arms trade groups he is a member of.
He hasn't stopped being against the arms trade and the use of arms just because he has become leader of the Labour party.

When all else fails - diversion

Jen, I have said so many times I am against arms sales , please do not accuse me of hypocricy in your poor defence of Corbyn, he deserves a degree in hypocricy

www.indy100.com/article/jeremy-corbyn-venezuela-condemn-theresa-may-arms-saudi-arabia-kevin-maguire-7882101

There's a map halfway down this link which shows all the countries that the government thinks have dubious human rights but still sells weapons to.
Colombia and Venezuela in South America.
In fact the worrying thing is that there are more countries on that map that they sell to rather than do not.

The argument is that we should not sell them any military equipment while they are using it on their own people.
Even May says that, but doesn't follow it through.

Have the items we've sold them been used against their citizens? The links show we've sold
components for military radar, weapon sights and military aircraft engines.
I don't see how what we have sold them are being used to suppress the opposition. Or is the argument that we should not have a commercial relationship with Venezuela or they should not have any military of their own?