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Post by Vene on Oct 9, 2011 10:35:42 GMT -5
Didn't he try to install a cult of personality and no limits on how many times he could get re-elected? (Which he actually got, if I recall correctly.) Nope, no dictatoriality here... You're right, that's not even anywhere close to a dictatorship. A dictator wouldn't allow his/her subjects to make the choice to re-elect them in the first place. Unless it was like Hussein and you got to vote, but the choices were him or nobody and you're not allowed to vote for nobody. |
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Post by ltfred on Oct 9, 2011 16:29:24 GMT -5
I don't get the Chavez-hatred. He's an elected president. I mean, you might disagree with a properly independent Venezuelan economy, but he's elected. He doesn't go around rounding up opponents, he doesn't fake elections, he doesn't steal land off its owners. Anybody who calls Chavez a dictator is trolling. Didn't he try to install a cult of personality and no limits on how many times he could get re-elected? (Which he actually got, if I recall correctly.) Nope, no dictatoriality here... Australian Prime Ministers have no limits on the amount of times they can be reelected, and try to promote themselves on television. DICTATORSHIP! Trolololololol! |
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Post by scotsgit on Oct 9, 2011 18:07:59 GMT -5
And funnily enough when the white farmers showed people how to run the farms (which is a part of the agreement you're choosing to ignore) As far as I can see, that is actually an imaginary part of the agreement. When the government started to give the land away to former soldiers (an idea also tried in Australia and the US, so it's not that far-out), not to mention government family-members, they were not able to put the land to good use. Black farmers also tended to produce staples (small grains production had increased by 163%), were working far smaller farms (without the economy of scale or poorly-paid menial labourers), without easy access to credit and without the productivity bonuses of heavy machinery. Tobacco, maize, coffee and tea production has, therefore, suffered, It may seem that way to you, but what the British government was doing (until Bliar fucked it all up) was paying the white farmers to teach farming techniques to black farmers then when the farms were sold, the UK government paid for the white farmers to either relocate or compensated them for loss of income. The problems started when New Labour decided to stop this scheme, even though it was a win-win situation all round. Nonsense. The white colonialists who shot the people born to the land and then approprated it for themselves were thieves. That's why 70% of the country was white-owned in 1979- theft. [/quote] So the people in 1979 are not only to blame, but are also to give back the land that someone else took over a hundred years earlier? Does that mean you're going to give your house to the aborigines and move to England? No, but he is the one exacerbating the problem, he is the one refusing to leave power, even though he's now round the twist. He closes down any newspapers, radio and TV stations that are in opposition to him. A recent BBC documentary showed people in his own country are scared to speak out for fear of reprisal. If calling someone who acts like that a dictator makes me a troll, so be it. |
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Post by scotsgit on Oct 9, 2011 18:11:30 GMT -5
You're right, that's not even anywhere close to a dictatorship. A dictator wouldn't allow his/her subjects to make the choice to re-elect them in the first place. Unless it was like Hussein and you got to vote, but the choices were him or nobody and you're not allowed to vote for nobody. He does have an opposition, but they don't get to put their message across: they aren't allowed interviews with the media (which can't broadcast anythin contrary to what the President says) and if they attempt to have a political rally, Chavez has his supporters there en masse to harass anyone who turns up for the rally. |
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Post by sylvana on Oct 10, 2011 2:22:19 GMT -5
Quick update for the situation regarding farming in both South Africa and Zimbabwe.
In Zimbabwe Zanu-PF supporters invaded and took farms belonging to white farmers. The farmers who did not manage to flee in time were brutally murdered. These farms now lay destroyed, and ransacked producing no food and not being used at all. However, the action to take the farms was wholeheartedly supported by Mugabe and the Zanu-PF. Actions like that including extremely undemocratic elections with extreme violence and voter intimidation lead to the sanctions against Zimbabwe. Further the stupid policies of the Zanu-PF government have led to hyper inflation.
People in Zimbabwe are starving with nothing in the shops. (Mugabe demanded that all shops sell things at 50% of their previous price. This led to mass looting's by Zanu-PF malitia. The shops unable to make even a small profit anymore just stopped. )
As for farming in South Africa, I don't know if I mentioned it but, most farms bought by the government and given to black farmers are either hopelessly unproductive, or have been sold back to white farmers within 2 years. Unfortunately the ANC government of South Africa look up to Mugabe and want to follow his sterling example on how to take land from the hands of white people. (I would say give to the poor black workers, but most appropriated land stays in the hands of the government.)
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Post by ltfred on Oct 10, 2011 2:45:17 GMT -5
It may seem that way to you, but what the British government was doing (until Bliar fucked it all up) was paying the white farmers to teach farming techniques to black farmers Not quite. The British government actually paid farmers to piss off and stop squatting on other people's farms. Zimbabwe was quite happy to just move them on, perhaps at gunpoint, but Britain preferred a 'willing buyer, willing seller' situation. Mugabe didn't mind that, so long as he didn't have to pay to obtain stolen goods. Oh, I agree. But bullshit austerity is hardly new for England, is it? Indeed. They were sold Brooklin Bridge, land sold in bad faith. When you say 'over a hundred', you mean 'less than a hundred'. Zimbabwe was only colonised in 1888. Well, that's not been the deal. If the deal was white people piss off, it'd be hard to argue that we have any claim to an inch of this country. As it is, not happening. Oh, sure. I agree. He closed down one television channel (or rather, cancelled it's licence) for the very good reason that it committed criminal fraud and tried to overthrow his elected government. If Channel Seven backed a millitary coup against my government, I'd want them closed down too. Nobody gets arrested or beaten for speaking out against the government, unlike in nearly every other South American country. Presumably they were members of the opposition and pretending. |
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Post by scotsgit on Oct 13, 2011 6:44:09 GMT -5
Fred, as my father told me years ago, there's no arguing with a bigot: Me and the rest of my countrymen are not to blame for what happened during the British Empire, we weren't there and most of us hadn't even been born, a fact you somehow can't grasp.
As has been pointed out, the white farmers weren't squatting, but I doubt you can see that. Someone who lives in SA has pointed out that the same is happening there, but I doubt you'll see that either.
And when a respected Journalist like Jonathon Dimbleby says that the opposition in a country are repressed, I believe what he says, not the rantings of western pro-Chavez supporters, who will never hear a had word against El Presidente.
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Post by ltfred on Oct 13, 2011 7:10:41 GMT -5
Fred, as my father told me years ago, there's no arguing with a bigot: Me and the rest of my countrymen are not to blame for what happened during the British Empire, we weren't there and most of us hadn't even been born, a fact you somehow can't grasp. That's partly true, in a criminal and moral sense. But it does mean that a bunch of white colonists got sold a bridge. The people they bought their homes off didn't own them. They are the recipients of stolen property. Therefore they're going to lose out. Too bad. You got ripped off. Total crap. They had no land claim but force. |
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Post by scotsgit on Oct 13, 2011 15:02:57 GMT -5
Fred, as my father told me years ago, there's no arguing with a bigot: Me and the rest of my countrymen are not to blame for what happened during the British Empire, we weren't there and most of us hadn't even been born, a fact you somehow can't grasp. That's partly true, in a criminal and moral sense. But it does mean that a bunch of white colonists got sold a bridge. The people they bought their homes off didn't own them. They are the recipients of stolen property. Therefore they're going to lose out. Too bad. You got ripped off. That makes no sense at all: repost it in English. Fred, if you use that argument, nobody in the world has any claim to land. |
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Post by ltfred on Oct 13, 2011 15:19:37 GMT -5
That's partly true, in a criminal and moral sense. But it does mean that a bunch of white colonists got sold a bridge. The people they bought their homes off didn't own them. They are the recipients of stolen property. Therefore they're going to lose out. Too bad. You got ripped off. That makes no sense at all: repost it in English. There are two circumstances in which these people obtained their land- the moral equivilent of breaking into the bank and running off with it, or buying it off the bankrobbers. The ancestors of both groups had no involvement in the actual crime, but they still don't own anything. They got sold a bridge, defrauded into buying something off someone who didn't own it. That's true, which is why I agree with the Georgists that land cannot be owned privately. Blind force isn't a legitimate claim to ownership- in fact, it's nearly always illegal to obtain property like that. South African whites were unlucky enough to steal land (and make people pay rent on it!) in a country where they'd be called on it. |
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Post by scotsgit on Oct 13, 2011 18:23:09 GMT -5
So what's your point? That nobody in Zimbabwe or South Africa owns any land?
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Post by sylvana on Oct 14, 2011 2:28:51 GMT -5
That's true, which is why I agree with the Georgists that land cannot be owned privately. Blind force isn't a legitimate claim to ownership- in fact, it's nearly always illegal to obtain property like that. South African whites were unlucky enough to steal land (and make people pay rent on it!) in a country where they'd be called on it. You know whites are called thieves and rapists in South Africa a lot, often by the very uneducated and manipulated majority and by the prominent politicians who do the manipulations. I personally am very sick and tired of being called a thief. It is one of those things that gets to one. I would at least expect people who live in America and Australia to understand that. (You know with the near genocidal slaughter of the natives on both continents followed by simply taking the land.) The colonization and expansions of nations throughout history are just a facet of the world we live in. While we would look up the actions committed by our forefathers with much disdain, it does not change the fact that if we were alive in that era we would have approved. Times change, as do what we consider moral as well as what we consider legal. The history of South Africa actually has the colonists trading for the land, often giving the native African tribes guns. However, the native Africans at the time did not actually comprehend the nature of this trade and often actually attacked the colonists to take what was traded for back. (this could have been anything from land to livestock). Similarly, while there may be 45 Million black Africans living in South Africa now, in the 1700 when the country was colonized there was probably barely 1million. Not to mention back then, they didn't even own the land, they barely used any of it. Then there is also the fact that they didn't care about the land the white man took until he had invested a crap load of effort and resources into it to actually make it worth something. The Blacks in South Africa say that because the land is theirs they deserve to own the wealth of the mines. However, they were only interested after western companies had bothered setting up those mines in the first place. The cold hard fact of the matter is this: It is not about land. It is all about oppressed people wanting wealth and comfort. They don't want to own a farm because they don't want to farm. They don't want to own the mine land as they don't want to mine. What they want is my house in the suburbs, with my paycheck preferably for doing nothing. They don't want land, they want money. They see the whites, who did oppress them, living comfortably, and they want that. Claims that it is their land by right is just a scapegoat and an excuse for them to take what is owned by others illegally. There are huge social and economic problems in South Africa. Part of the problem is the legacy of Apartheid. It created two social and economic classes, that divided the country. However in the more than 20 years since Apartheid was abolished, the gap between rich and poor has increased and the previously oppressed majority is more poor and more oppressed than ever before. Part of this comes from the Government's incredibly hostile attitude towards white citizens. This attitude has unfortunately encouraged many skilled white people to leave the country. With the ever increasingly draconian BEE laws, white people are getting an education and then promptly leaving the country because it is near impossible to get an entry level job as a white person. This has led to a huge skills drain on the country. Along with the skills drain is the complete screw up that is the education system. I mentioned it earlier in this thread. However and example that might give pause for thought is that people educated in Zimbabwe, the cesspit of the world economy, have a better education than those who manage to pass in South Africa. The education system is rife with corruption and BEE introduced incompetence. In an ever increasing attempt to look good, the government continually lowers the bar to make the number of students that pass higher. My mom is a high school teacher. She used to teach biology, she now teaches a remedial class. This class exists because there are many high school students that cannot read or do basic arithmetic. I have seen these students work with my own eyes. They should still be in primary school not in high school. This is just how bad our level of education has become. Now to ties this together, the skills drain has resulted in a lack of clear skilled workers to train up the next generation of workers. The whites are not encouraged to train possible replacements, they are expected to simply give up their job to an unskilled, inexperienced workers. This is why the farms that get given to black farmers often fail. The correct solution would have been to hire the white farmer to train the new black farmer how to do everything and skill them up. Through this it will lead to the economic empowerment of the oppressed majority. Unfortunately the government is more concerned with their own pockets and revenge against whites to actually look after the people they claim to support. |
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Post by ltfred on Oct 14, 2011 6:09:30 GMT -5
So what's your point? That nobody in Zimbabwe or South Africa owns any land? Nobody anywhere owns any land. It's all obtained by force, not labour. In Zimbabwe, it just so happens that a) everyone remembers the specific circumstances because they were b) so memorably awful. Now that the former slaves have taken over, it's hardly legitimate for the white 'owners' to complain about their own force being turned back against them. You know whites are called thieves and rapists in South Africa a lot, Whites continue to own nearly all of South Africa. Maybe their feelings get hurt when black people call them what they used to call black people, but they're still top dog by a long way. Obviously people shouldn't slander you. It's not nice. But it's hardly systematic discrimination. That's a bit like saying the holocaust* is 'just a facet of the world we live in'. I disagree. Some people committed these acts- genocide, colonialism. These people have a legal case to answer for those crimes. In the case of Germany, those people are ruthlessly hunted down. Both acts (colonialism and the holocaust) are within living memory, mind. *And yes, dammit, they are comparable. I'm quite happy to compare Hitler's murder of 12 million and (say) Leopold's murder of 10 million. Or the untold millions killed in Britain's slave trade. Disdain! Disdain! Nonsense. Colonialism was always controversial- Adam Smith was an opponent. So should we let the Nazis off? Everyone in Germany thought what they were doing was fine, right? 'What we consider moral' just changed. The vast majority of cases were egregious scams, or blatant force. Or a combination. Europeans were hardly negotiating in good faith, were they? If you don't give them everything today, they'll come back next time and they won't give you guns. Like I said, scam. Terra nullius! Isn't it convenient that all of the places Europeans wanted to live in (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Israel) were completely unoccupied! Because black society was worthless. I'd say it's everyones and everyone should share the wealth of the mines (not just De Beers). Because black society had no industrial mining techniques, or use for worthless stones. Only in part. The land represents rent, which represents the continuing inabillity of black Africans to participate equally in the SA economy. Taking away unearned income from people who don't own land will make it a little easier. Racist bullshit. 100% of black Africans are lazy and don't want jobs. There ARE NO JOBS. Unemployment is a rate, not a choice. 100% of black Africans are lazy Ne'er-do-wells. 100% of black Africans wouldn't take the NO JOBS offered them. Of course, and they're willing to work for that. BUT THERE ARE NO JOBS. Indeed. It's been convincingly argued that apartheid never ended. You'd think that, instead of condemning all the victims of this ridiculously evil situation, you'd criticise the governments responsible (the ANC and so on). Not quite. It entirely comes from the Government's pro-white (ie, pro-wealthy) bullshit neoliberalism-that-can-and-will-never-work-anywhere-ever. If some sort of development economics was followed, perhaps attached to a job growth policy, the problem of continued economic apartheid would clear right up. It's also meant that huge numbers of potentially hard-working black Africans have been left home doing nothing but slowly starving of poverty. Because neoliberalism never works. The black unemployment rate is 30%. The white unemployment rate is 5%. A better education system would be nicer. But more jobs are more important. 30% unemployment. South Africa does not have a labour shortage. 5% unemployment. Citation? Sure. New farmers should be somehow trained how to farm. |
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Post by Art Vandelay on Oct 14, 2011 6:13:13 GMT -5
So what's your point? That nobody in Zimbabwe or South Africa owns any land? Nobody anywhere owns any land. It's all obtained by force, not labour. In Zimbabwe, it just so happens that a) everyone remembers the specific circumstances because they were b) so memorably awful. Now that the former slaves have taken over, it's hardly legitimate for the white 'owners' to complain about their own force being turned back against them. So if they were to return with the Royal Army, that would be cool too, right? |
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Post by ltfred on Oct 14, 2011 7:21:22 GMT -5
Nobody anywhere owns any land. It's all obtained by force, not labour. In Zimbabwe, it just so happens that a) everyone remembers the specific circumstances because they were b) so memorably awful. Now that the former slaves have taken over, it's hardly legitimate for the white 'owners' to complain about their own force being turned back against them. So if they were to return with the Royal Army, that would be cool too, right? Absolutely not. Trying to obtain things you don't own by force is theft. But the society of Zimbabwe does own Zimbabwe. |
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