Socialism
Venezuela is Feeling the “Bern”
I love Gay Patriot’s clear take on things. I hope all my conservative evangelical readers head over to support such clear thinking and thank him:
In 1999, Venezuela was taken over by Socialist who promised that he would punish big corporations and redistribute wealth to “the people” to provide health care, education, infrastructure, and even out income inequality. (Sound familiar?) The American Left cheered. Celebrities like Sean Penn and Danny Glover praised his Democratic Socialist economic measures. Chavez systematically nationalized the oil, banking, agricultural, food distribution, telecommunications, and power industries in Venezuela; because running them as social democratic communes would eliminate “greed” and give the people lower cost goods and services. The American Left praised him for “democratizing” the Venezuelan economy. When Chavez shut down opposition TV, radio, and newspapers the American Left defended it as necessary to protect the Revolution.
The American Left likes to pretend now that Venezuela isn’t a real example of Social Democracy; but up until the economy collapsed (as every sensible person knew it would) they were Chavez’s biggest cheerleaders, as the links above (or any Google search) shows.
When Hugo Chavez died, he left behind a personal fortune of nearly $4 Billion. Just sayin’
Anyway, the real legacy of Hugo Chavez is that the country with the second largest oil reserves in the Western Hemisphere can’t even keep the lights on. But, Hey, it’s not their fault, you guys.
- (Venezuelan President) Maduro blames the collapse on an “economic war” by capitalists.
Actually, it’s the economic war *on* capitalists that caused your problems, comrade….
The Politics of Envy ~ Afterburner
Bill Whittle recently spoke to a progressive audience of high school students, and took several Bernie Sanders questions. Hear what he told those millennials.
John Stossel – Populism and Socialism
Gloria Alvarez joins John to discuss the effects of socialist economic policies in Latin America and links populism to socialism.
Government: Is it Ever Big Enough?
Can the government ever be too big? How much spending is enough spending? And if there can be too much spending, where is that point? William Voegeli, Senior Editor of the Claremont Review of Books, explores these complex questions and offers some clear answers.
An Object Lesson in Democratic Socialism
Sheperd Fairey ~ The Iconographer of Choice for Socialists
~ INSIDE EVERY LIBERAL IS A TOTALITARIAN SCREAMING TO GET OUT ~
Gay Patriot does an excellent job in calling out the fascination of the extremist left’s enchantment with totalitarian “art.”
Shepard Fairey continues to establish himself as the Valentina Kulagina of American Socialism, coming with new iconography for the Bernie Sanders campaign.
Socialists, for some reason, really love this kind of stuff, the mating of terrible ideas with stunning graphic design.
The People’s Cube mock’s it by putting it side-by-side for comparison:
…Enter Shepard Fairey, the favorite visual agitator and propagandist of the American Left. We don’t think he considers himself a fascist at all. It’s just that when he tries to think of the coolest possible visual for a socialist candidate like Bernie Sanders, he comes up with a design that not only screams “national socialism” due to its style and execution, but directly imitates the elements and composition of Nazi paraphernalia…
The Daily Caller will finish off this post with some points of interest:
Shepard Fairey, the “artist” who “created” that iconic image, is back. And you’ll never guess which presidential candidate he’s supporting this time!
Fairey says he’s “tired of portraits” and wants to focus on “principles, not personalities.” This is a tacit admission that he was a credulous dupe back in ’08, and he played a big role in manufacturing Obama’s fraudulent cult of personality. And if Fairey is “tired of portraits,” that might be because he stole a photo of Obama from the Associated Press to make the “HOPE” poster, then lied about it during the huge legal mess, and his own lawyers quit, and it was a whole big thing.
But now, for the low, low price of $30, you can own another piece of American history that was designed by the “HOPE” dope himself…
For real political art, see: http://unsavoryagents.com/
Capitalism Is Great ~ Paul Joseph Watson
By resisting capitalism, socialists are embracing an economic system that guarantees poverty and misery for the most amount of people. (This guy is part of Prison Planet/InfoWars, orgs I do not support.)
Socialism Always Lapses Into Authoritarianism
GAY PATRIOT posts this idea that Socialism and Authoritarianism Are Joined at the Hip:
In the Netherlands (a progressive democratic-socialist Eurotopian country in the Bernie Sanders model), the police are paying house calls to intimidate people who express the wrong ideas in social media.
Throughout the Netherlands, the police visits are part of campaign led by local authorities to address concerns related to social media at the communal level. A spokesperson from the municipality of Loon op Zand, which governs Kaatsheuvel, told DW that police in her municipality only rarely pay personal visits to social media users. If they do, she says, the goal is to clarify that user’s intentions and plans for real-world protests. A police spokesperson from the Oost-Nederland region added that similar programs in his region are intended to be proactive rather than reactive: Local authorities let social media users know in advance that they’re walking a fine line, and they also inform those users that they could face incitement charges if their calls for protests ultimately result in violence.
All Socialist countries will incline toward authoritarianism; this is because all Socialists are authoritarians in their bones….
Here is more about the type of “Tweets” that make the police come-a-callin:
In rare instances, Dutch police are knocking on social media users’ doors and asking them to be careful writing posts about refugees that could lead to real-life violence and, ultimately, to charges of online incitement.
One example is Mark Jongeneel, a small business owner in the small city of Sliedrecht who tweeted his reaction to asylum plans in his city:
Translation: “The college of Sliedrecht has a proposal to receive 250 refugees in the coming 2 years. What a bad plan! #letusresist”
Hours later, his mother (with whom he lives) contacted him to say local police had visited her house and were now on their way to his office.
“I asked them what the problem was. And they said, ‘Your tweets,'” Jongeneel told DW. “And they asked me to be careful about my Twitter behavior, because if there are riots, then I’m responsible.”….
Later, FRONTPAGE MAG notes that Mark Jongeneel said:
I hope they’ve got some Stasi advisers to help them do it.
- Mark Jongeneel says the increased attention has not changed his behavior online – nor will it. “Freedom of speech is very important, and I will not be silenced,” he said.
Here is an interesting story of censorship on Amazon via Breitbart:
Bowing to left-wing pressure, U.S. online retailer Amazon.com has taken down “wartime refugee” costumes for children on its Italian and German sites dw.com reports.
To British and American readers the move would seem to come at an odd time, but for Germans and Italians the upcoming season of Carnival is their chance to dress up.
The most interesting thing about the costumes in question are that they are obviously not meant to represent the continent’s current migrants, but Amazon has still removed them for fear of causing offence.
The boys’ costume consists of brown trousers, a white shirt, grey sleeveless jumper and a flat cap. It is something more reminiscent of wartime comedy Dad’s Army than the ongoing war in Syria. The girls costume is equally innocuous, being a long dress infinitely less flashy than anything worn by young girls today.
The costumes look old because they are based off of children from the first and second world war when both mothers and their children were often evacuated from cities targeted for bombing raids, and ended up in places less likely to be bombed like Wales or small rural towns….
Sanders Supporters “Explain” Socialism
R.C. Sproul Jr. Discusses Socialism vs. Free-Markets
This course is based on R.C.’s book, Biblical Economics: A Commonsense Guide to Our Daily Bread. There is a multi-part playlist of his DVD series here. The below is part 5 of the series and deals with socialism versus free-markets:
Hillary Clinton Joins DNC Chair In Obfuscating Terms (+ Chuck Schumer)
Gateway Pundit notes the following about the above:
The Right Scoop reports:
In a completely softball interview with “Hardball” host, ironically, Chris Matthews, Hillary awkwardly side-stepped his question on what the difference is between being a socialist and being a Democrat.
Democrats claim Reagan wouldn’t be accepted in today’s Republican Party. Do they really think JFK would be accepted by today’s Democrats? Fat chance.
Remember this question to the DNC head?
HotAir connects the obfuscation…
By this time, Chris Matthews must be panicked. When he asked DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz to explain the difference between Democrats and socialists, the MSNBC host expressed considerable angst that the party’s leading officer couldn’t do so. “I used to think there was a big difference,” Matthews lamented at the time.
Fast forward five months. Matthews posed the question to the party’s leading candidate for its presidential nomination, and … Hillary Clinton couldn’t explain it either.