Khatami congratulates Chavez on recall win

http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=8/18/2004&Cat=2&Num=005

The Freepers are already saying what you think they would say
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1193704/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1193659/posts

snip
According to a report released by the Presidential Office Khatami pointed to his earlier remark that the efforts of government leaders in responding to the nations’ high objectives are always welcomed.

The world is now witnessing an example of such a victory which is a victory for the Constitution and the Venezuelan people, the office quoted the president as saying.

Khatami hoped for further expansion of relations between the two nations through the efforts of the two governments. .Iran calls Venezuela vote a victory for democracy

"The Islamic Republic of Iran welcomes the massive turnout of Venezuelans for the presidential referendum, since it was a big test for this country and the Latin America in establishing democracy and the government of the people," Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi also said in a press release carried by IRNA. "The outcome of this referendum once again proved the reality that people do not accept foreign powers interfering in their internal affairs."
snip

as a New Age FDR?

a New Age Third Reich.
The two are philosophically incompatible. And maybe this has been true ever since the end of the 2nd World War uder the guidence of the Dulles Brothers.

with stong links to Castro. FDR wanted to save capitalism, Chavez wants to destroy it. There is an extremely powerful pro-capitalist feeling in this country, you can't get anywhere politically if people think you are a socialist. Even during the Great Depression, when capitalism was failing worldwide, support for socialism at home never climbed that high. I don't know why we are so committed to a mutated 400 year old merchantile code that we refuse to consider alternatives, or even consider modifying the current implimentation of that code, but we are.

very much, so long as it has big middle class deriving a fair percentage of the wealth they create from the market place.

That's actually the reason the neo-liberals find him so dangerous. It would be easy enough for them if he were a socialist because they'd know he'd fail. But they're really afraid that what he's going to do will work.

Why does he lead the May Day parade? Why maintain the close relationship with Cuba, despite the fact that he knows it will piss the US off? What is the revolution he always speaks of? He may be something of a market socialist, but when marxist.com heavily endorses you I don't think you can be called a capitalist.

http://www.marxist.com/Latinam/recall_referendum_venezuela.html

socialist revolution

a Democrat in the Bolivarean tradition. It is true that he also belongs to the anti-imperialist tradition, and indeed that his social reforms are redistributive, but this does not make him a socialist or communist as you and AP rightly point out. I think its meaningless to characterise someone as a capitalist though, in the sense that as long as there is a market we are all capitalists. Marxists will endorse Chavez because they hope that he will take Venezuela in a more communist direction, something that as we can see he has been strongly resisting.

It is really the U.S. and Canada that are out of step on this one, I believe, having Labour Day in September.

"For over 100 years, May Day has been celebrated as Labour Day – the day when workers around the world express their international solidarity and claim their right to justice, equality and freedom.

° The roots of May Day

The origins of May Day as a celebration of workers’ solidarity go back to the nineteenth century, and are linked to the long struggle for an eight-hour working day."

http://www.our-europe.org/r/5

Canada has also had a fairly close relationship with Cuba - in fact, Castro was one of Pierre Trudeau's pallbearers.

Being a socialist in Canada does not make one out of the mainstream. Remember that lady who went on Orielly's show and made his head explode when she wasn't offended at him calling her a socialist? And from your own post May Day is about the international gathering of workers to fight for equality, sounds pretty socialistic to me.

Speaking as a 'leftistagitator', I mean.

May Day was originally a celebration by US unions of their victory in winning the right to an 8 hour work day.

Is that socialist?

Do you consider FDR to have been a socialist?

And I would be for it. Just because you are used to the term socialism being used as an insult doesn't mean socialism is a bad thing. The 8 hour working day is somewhat socialistic, even in America we too have a mixed economy hybrid of capitalism and socialism, we just for some reason don't like to admit that pure capitalism doesn't work. Of course all countries have mixed economies, even the Soviets did, but some lie closer to state-run systems and some run closer to privately run systems. Canada with it's well run government controlled national healthcare system, broadcasting system, and public education system is more socialistic than us, as are Britian and most of Europe, to their betterment.

FDR was in an ackward place; he was pressed by a world wide surge of anti-capitalist attitude, while himself being a non-ideologue. FDR did whatever worked, he tried massive spending projects, productivity caps, reforming the banking system, and reforming worker's rights. He would always talk about saving capitalism from itself. Many of these reforms came straight from socialist 3rd party platforms, some of his best stuff too, like social security.

Have you never read Upton Sinclair's work? Why do you attack me for not cringing in fear at the term socialism? George Orwell was a socialist, do you think that he didn't care about the rights of man? Socialism is a broad term that can mean anything from liberal Western European democracies to conservative authoritarian dictatorships like Russia and Iraq. While some "socialist" states have been horrible places, that doesn't make socialism bad, especially since it's ingrained into just about every civilized government on the planet. In a modern society, there are really only 2 models of government, planned or "socialist" economies and non-planned capitalist economies. There has never been a pure version of either put into practice. The countries that lean towards planned economies are considered socialistic, the ones that lean towards non-planned economies are considered capitalistic economies. Neither idea is "evil".

Geez, I can't believe all the outrage over this. I've supported Chavez from the beginning, in fact you won't find a single anti-Chavez post I've ever written. Yet yall get so offended and even intimate that I may be a disruptor when I think he's socialistic because he hangs with Fidel and leads a red-shirt wearing group of supporters on parade every May Day. Fine, he's not a socialist, but he couldn't look more socialist if he was wearing a Che shirt.

I do not think it means what you think it means.

An international union of all workers would not be a socialist idea. It has nothing to do with a government. Socialism is a type of economy involving the government, ergo, unions have nothing whatsoever to do with socialism, no matter how large the union is.

An international union of all workers has been urged by the IWW, and they are predominately anarcho-syndicalist in orientation.

You're getting a lot of outrage not because we are all anti-socialist here. You're getting it because you are using a very loaded word (in the US) in a very imprecise manner.

For example, you seem to indicate that you think government regulation of business is somehow socialist in nature. Again, not that there's anything wrong with socialism, but you're incorrect. Regulation of corporations happened well before the birth of modern socialism as a theory. Even Adam Smith, patron saint of Capitalism, was highly suspicious of corporations -- especially large ones -- and spoke against the formation of monopolies.

But the fact that you've connected regulation of corporations with socialism rings a familiar bell -- it's exactly the same thing that corporate libertarians say.

would dictate the production of goods in the world. I don't see how it could help but become the defacto government. I don't know about how imprecise the words I'm using are, this is all straight from my economics courses. I know Adam Smith opposed the establishment of corporate law, but as I said earlier we follow a mutated form of capitalism.

But I think it requires an excessively loose definition of the term "socialistic". Canada does have a somewhat more generous social welfare system than the U.S. (but not more generous than much of Europe), and there is somewhat greater government involvement in the economy than in the U.S. (but again, not compared to much of Europe). Even that is disputable, as many would claim that the huge spending on the military in the U.S. amounts to a large de facto government role in the economy.

We have what is often referred to as a "mixed market economy". The vast majority of the political spectrum is comfortable with that notion, although there is disagreement about the proper mix of private and public sector involvement in the economy. I suppose we are somewhat more socialistic than the U.S., if you wish to look at things on that sort of continuum. We are a long way from socialist, though.

I appreciate your point about language. It is true that we don't withdraw in horror at the use of the term "socialist" the way many Americans do. However, the term can be quite elastic when used as a self-description, rather like the term "Christian". So, I wouldn't put too much stock in what Heather Mallick said to Mr. O'rielly. She is a very erudite columnist and probably did that as much to amaze O'rielly as anything else. Her use of the term socialist is probably more akin to the use of the term liberal in the U.S.

I like it, I wish ours were more like yours, in fact I'm strongly considering moving to Canada eventually. We are too capitalistic in the states, we let business have far too much power and don't protect the rights of the people nearly enough. And the few times we don't follow the rules of capitalism, it's just to give out massive subsidies to the rich friends of government officials.

Some of our government policy is definitely more "collectivist" (e.g. public health care) and our political culture is rather more liberal in general.

You might find the book "Fire and Ice" by Micheal Adams interesting - it is an examination of the political cultures of the U.S. and Canada, with some forays into the regional differences in each country. It is based on multivariate analysis of survey data, but it is written for a general public. Perhaps not surprisingly, he finds the political culture of New England to be quite close to the Canadian political culture. The south, especially the "deep south" is the farthest from the Canadian norms.

Of course New England government policy is probably still quite distinct from Canada. For one thing, state governments there are constrained by being in a more conservative federal state.

On edit - I agree that it can take a while to realize that language can cause us all to see disagreements that aren't really there. I would agree that Chavez probably does have "socialistic tendencies" (although I am no expert on his policies). It is just that the right has succeeded in turning that into a pretext for invasion, so people are understandably wary.

which is totally and utterly different from socialistic in the common use of the term. Social Democratic is a market economy with a relatively strong government provision of services such as health care, energy, water, transport, eductaion and so on. Socialist on the other hand usually refers to a transitory phase before communism which is characterise predominantly by a centrally planned economy (as opposed to a market economy). Which is also why Chavez is not a socialist.

They're not arguing for much more than than the rights of the poor to participate in market capitalism on a level playing field and with the same opportunities to succeed as everyone else.

Never heard of marxist.com before.

OMG! Lets oust this horrible man Chavez. Look at the evidence..

- Links to evildoer Castro AND leads the May Day parade? -


Do we need more?

Lets go get 'im. Either with us or with the terra-ists.


USA USA USA USA USA USA!!!!



<sarcasm off>

and march on May Day, see how far you get. This is not the way I want things to be, this is the way they are. You try killing the notion that socialism=communism=Russia=evil.

that would be childishly simplistic. What do you mean by evil?

loosely connected with undesirable, unacceptable, unfree, wicked, morally wrong, undemocratic, and a thousand other concepts that Americans hear when they hear the word socialism. I never said it was a rational connection, just one which exists. Do you think 50 years of cold war and two red scares melt out of the national consciousness so easily?

.. means that no one can learn?.. no one can educate?.. we must stay ignorant.. we must stay stuck in the mud?


If you want to live in isolation from reality, go ahead.

Not me.

I chose not to. I actually went to Cuba (legally) many times.

You're right, it isn't easy to change Americanundereducatedgoupthink, but it must start somewhere.

Count me in on positive change.

:hi:

A founding member, even. In fact, Venezeula is often credited with revitalizing OPEC during the 1980's and 90's.

Just bringing that up in case someone finds it odd that the President of Iran commented on the Venezuelan recall referendum. Given that their ministers have to meet fairly regularly through OPEC, it's entirely expected.

There are plenty of self appointed or court appointed dictators in the world and we're not trying to overthrow them. What makes Chavez and Venezuela so different? Oh right, Oil just like Saddam.

dic·ta·tor -n.
1 - a. - An absolute ruler.
b. - A tyrant; a despot.
2 - An ancient Roman magistrate appointed temporarily to deal with an immediate crisis or emergency.

3- One who dictates: These initials are those of the dictator of the letter.

Chavez is a president not a dictator

It looks like he's gonna have to become a dictator if he wants to keep the BFEE out.

:shrug:

That doesn't make any sense at all.

I feel dirty. I need to take a shower after reading all that right wing shit.

They just serve to vex the spirit.

study its patterns

still not going to exchange volleys. i take no stock in crazy people.

Fr. It is useful in refuting the bull the freepers try to post to my ISP forum boards. For one thing, they always plagerize each other and edit freely posting butchered comments written by others as their own.

Bad for their credibility.

A beautiful country, totally controlled by robber barons who were in the back pockets of US pols and oil companies. Mismanagement, crime, abuse, all the bad things, were rife.

Caracas has(d) a mountainside - the shanty town that would make Pullman and others proud. It was so poor that rainwater allowed people to bathe.

Where I stayed was magnificent. Palaces, huge lots, great views, and heavily armed guards. VERY heavily armed. No way would these people want to rub shoulders with the citizens.

If there was a more effite, snobbish, faux elite group of thugs, outside of the Cheney neocon group, I don't know it.