The suicide of nations, Venezuela, and the US
Joel Hirst offers a description of what happened to Venezuela:
I have watched the suicide of a nation; and I know now how it happens. Venezuela is slowly, and very publically, dying; an act that has spanned more than fifteen years. To watch a country kill itself is not something that happens often. In ignorance, one presumes it would be fast and brutal and striking – like the Rwandan genocide or Vesuvius covering Pompeii…
No, national suicide is a much longer process – not product of any one moment. But instead one bad idea, upon another, upon another and another and another and another and the wheels that move the country began to grind slower and slower; rust covering their once shiny facades. Revolution – cold and angry. Hate, as a political strategy. Law, used to divide and conquer. Regulation used to punish. Elections used to cement dictatorship. Corruption bleeding out the lifeblood in drips, filling the buckets of a successive line of bureaucrats before they are destroyed, only to be replaced time and again. This is what is remarkable for me about Venezuela. In my defense – weak though it may be – I tried to fight the suicide the whole time; in one way or another. I suppose I still do, my writing as a last line of resistance. But like Dagny Taggert I found there was nothing to push against – it was all a gooey mess of resentment and excuses. “You shouldn’t do that.” I have said. And again, “That law will not work,” and “this election will bring no freedom,” while also, “what you plan will not bring prosperity – and the only equality you will find will be in the bread line.” And I was not alone; an army of people smarter than me pointed out publically in journals and discussion forums and on the televisions screens and community meetings and in political campaigns that the result would only be collective national suicide. Nobody was listening.
Gives me the willies, because although we’re not nearly there yet, we’re already way too close for comfort.
I had a friend who used to argue with me about where venezuela was going to go…. the more it went there, the less i spoke to the friend, eventually, he shut everything down and there is zero contact… as if i controlled venezuela and was just being mean about what i was doing there… but thats the point, until it goes under, no one will believe its even heading in that direction. then when it gets there, its the fault of whomever declares the paranoid answer of the more powerful invisable anti communist moriarty of politics.
the US took up every leftist idea which was originally given when those things were seen as harmful, and maximal destructive, now they are normal and crazy is the order of the day.
take the quota article in daily news today by a feminist who is upset that there are not enough pudendas in place, and wants a quota. she brushes aside the harm it will do and the negatives of affirmatice action, ignores that this is a country of elections, not dictated positions in which someone could actually grant such a quota, but then to cap the article off, espousing how the equal and not quite up to par is actually not equal but superior but cant get elected. (without one peep that by defintion they are running on a platform of favortism of half the country and disparagement and impingment of the other half by arbitrary reasons)
yeah… well, demographics tell it all and the race games are shifting.
the exterminated leftist based feminists are standing there wonderering if they should poor more gas and refuse to see the declne and collapse of the very country they claimed they were going to improve – and they did in that socialist high tax huge government regulate everything and eugenics…
heck, friday i had a feminist who was pregnant yelling at me a stranger how she is upset that the men are not getting up to give her a seat, and all this special stuff, and i was trying to be friendly… but she became the typical angry at everything feminist who got pissed when i said, we are equal, whats the problem now? she went on how being a mother is a martyr thing and that men will never understand etc… and on and on, and she just didnt get that the men were treating her as equal and ignoring her and if that patriarchal stuff she wanted then the big change and disenfranchisement and being so negative to the people she wants things from wasnt going to get that…
She just droned on, and refusedd to be nice to a stranger who was just gabbing…
the bottom line is that in evry axis and every way, the stuff that used to hold this place up as a great society has been changed, negated, made political, and just put the people into a who gives a shit i dont care and we cant function position.
which will be interesting as the russians and chinese are pushing each year more and more twards war…
but war with a population that cant function, get along with each other, self organize, plays pc games and hates itself isnt going to last long against competent people who can organize, are not mentally disfunctional as a norm (and believing its a great thing), and on and on.
bed, see bed, lay in bed
as a male whi has been disenfranchised and negated
i dont give a crap about the future of the USA any more… i am just waiting to die before this country murders me by some form of policy, medical or financial.
and your going to find a HUGE number of similar men and such i said to take a look at for over 10 years…
they are the people who wont stop whats coming
any more than swedesh men are stopping the mass rapes and gang rapes and such. why should they? what are they being offered?
its gonna get interesting…
but the young men dont care and have gone missing
to the point that there is no defense, and no one cares what will happen next other than what happens to themselves and screw everyone else.
compared to the family pictures of the old era to the crazy dysfunctional mental twerking new feminist age, well, you can tell where things will be in 40 years and thats that.
now excuse me
i have to wait to die…
there is no future for most of us men of certain classes
and whats left, well, has been debased and trashed to the point where they have made almost no one happy but the very wealthy and powerful… funny how that movement that was to make everyone better, ended up making royalty and misery and nearly fulfilled marx two party system.
Not new unfortunately. There were 154 constitutional democracies in ancient Greece, of which, Athens was the most famous. They all died within three generations and in every case the demogogues promised the poor the wealth of the upper class. They voted themselves the treasury and the city state would collapse into some form of tyranny.
Venezuala isn’t the first Latin country to descend into the pit. Argentina under Juan Peron had a similar fate in a country that had been the one of the most prosperous in the world in 1900.
I hate to say it, but poor people in large numbers in a democracy are a danger.
And here’s another nail in the coffin: our own DOJ is saying now it’s OK for public colleges to violate student and staff 1st Amendment rights as long as they are pursuing the new sexual harassment guidelines put out by the DOE a few years back. The death is coming by a thousand small cuts, all carefully orchestrated by the Left.
https://www.thefire.org/department-of-justice-title-ix-requires-violating-first-amendment/
Joel Hirst:
“And I was not alone; an army of people smarter than me pointed out publically in journals and discussion forums and on the televisions screens and community meetings and in political campaigns that the result would only be collective national suicide. Nobody was listening.”
The activist game is competitive. Not clear from the quote whether his side competed for real but were simply outplayed by the competition, or like US conservatives, eschewed activism and thereby effectively conceded the game.
Eric:
As far as I can tell, Hirsch is from the US. I think he worked for years for some NGO in Venezuela, and is some sort of specialist in Latin America.
Was it over when the Germans* bombed Pearl Harbor? NO. It was over Nov 4, 2008. Or for the more optimistic among you, Nov 6, 2012.
It’s the brainwashing of school and college age students that scares me. That the administrators cater to these spoiled brats is not a good sign. Bring back the woodsheds and big paddles, and shoot down the helicopters of the parents.
I always felt proud when my parents entrusted me with real things. When your parents know you are tough enough to survive, you know you will.
We ARE there. We have been here for a while. We just have a deeper bench, more resources, than Venezuela. People do not listen or read or see except for confirmation of their own bias.
“It’s the brainwashing of school and college age students that scares me. ”
Yes! The children are our future, run for the hills. I read that Chavez instituted laws in the Venezuelan educational system specifically designed to indoctrinate students in socialist doctrine (deceptively referred to as the Bolivaran Doctrine) rather than educate them. And it succeeded. Same thing is happening here. Deceptively labeled programs and goals that are basically socialist indoctrination turning out whiny empty-headed intolerant little fascists. Closing down private schools as they posed a “threat to democracy.” I also read that a Venezuelan education minister openly admitted that they were uneducating students because the government was not interested in preparing people to think independently and vote them out of office.
The first comment here is a perfect example of the “gooey mess of resentments and excuses.” If you want to burn down your own life, feel free. Nobody’s stopping you. But have the courtesy to realize you’re not alone and give the rest of us a chance to try to live free once again.
I remember being at a barbeque when Chavez had just been elected. My progressive brother was there, and while chatting on the patio I said to the group that Chavez would become a dictator and rob the country blind.
My brother scoffed at it.
Obama=Chavez, as I first posted in 2008.
I am not sure suicide is the correct charge, but rather murder. Death by 1000 cuts and 1000 perpetrators, countered only by passive “resistance”.
Recall Leopoldo Lopez, the leader of the Venezuelan opposition, who presented himself for incarceration after Maduro charged him with something like treason? It’s been three years and he’s still in prison. A trial? Meh.
The Bonhoeffers of the world may achieve sainthood, but little else. They die in prison, and take others with them, usually relatives.
It takes guns and steel.
Our feminized Left has been successful in brainwashing even its opposition. Violence Bad, Tolerance Good. We see it here on this very blog. Who is calling for bullets?
Matt_SE,
Nearly all of us have progressive relatives, and many of them are apparently incapable of admitting to having been wrong (in anything specific).
And, almost all the ones who can admit to, on a specific issue, being mistaken… refuse to acknowledge the logical implications, that call into question, the particular beliefs that led to their error.
This leads to a hard conclusion; the refusal to admit past error and/or the resusal to examine the implications of that error equate to willful blindness, which creates complicity.
I’m beginning to conclude that this prideful denial will, perhaps more than any other factor, result in the coming civil war.
This is why I have begun to stockpile food … and to keep chickens in the back-yard, and grow a vegetable garden … and get a Concealed Carry License … and save up for a generator… and hope for enough sales of my books that I can eventually afford a bolt-hole in a small country town in the Texas Hill Country …
Because I can see it all happening, slowly first, and then all at once.
Accelerating.
The signs are all around; some writ large, others small.
VDH has a column on the lawlessness in California. It shows up in many ways. There is just little respect for, or attempt to enforce, the laws that make us a civilized society. To me one of the most noticeable, and most egregious, is ignoring red lights. I don’t mean sneaking through on the yellow; but, blatantly driving through well after it has turned. No respect for the law; and no respect for fellow drivers put at risk.
Fifty years ago, my wife and I scoffed at the trash on the streets and walks of Naples, Italy. Not to mention the anarchy practiced by the drivers. I would laugh at the Italians, and wonder if this was what a mature society looked like. I don’t laugh any longer.
All the ObamaFans refuse to acknowledge that their Savior is and always has been a fraud. TrumpFans will do the same. Failure will be deflected. Excuses, excuses, excuses. CYA will be more important than the fate of the nation.
Egalite is our doom.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/end-democracy-america-14332.html
de Tocqueville was a most amazingly foresight-gifted man.
Read this in the current City Journal, and understand there is NO WAY OUT.
Not even in the limestone hills of the Hill Country.
Or parker’s badger hole.
I don’t call it suicide as much as melting down to the lowest common denominator. The country of Venezuela is still there. The suicide of the USA is different. Ours is a real suicide since the original population is being replaced by a completely different people with a different history and a different culture which they have no intention to abandon. As I understand the situation, the legacy Americans did not vote for Obama in the last election in large numbers and among them Romney won in a landslide.
AMartel Says:
April 25th, 2016 at 8:35 pm
All the ObamaFans refuse to acknowledge that their Savior is and always has been a fraud. …
^^^
Not so. They are, on the whole, True Believers, as enthusiastic as Barry.
“Blame Whitey” is where they, and he, are at — and always have been.
He has been true to them, hence his 100% turnout, in Black districts, 2012.
Bread and circuses are entirely worth it — if you’re a baker or performer.
&&&
Neither Barry, nor his True Believers, were ever serious about healing the nation.
Black America, today, is racist America.
Without the Federal racial ‘engine’ they’d have no get-up and go.
They are as invested in racial preferences as any plantation owner circa 1855… obsessed.
&&&&
The new form of conquest — is same as the old — womb conquest.
cf Europe… and American White demographics.
Just as extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, extremism in defense against black and Latino takeovers is no vice either.
Frog,
Its not a badger hole, wrong side of the Mississippi. Its a gopher hole 90 minutes from the wilds of Ontario. 😉
The time of the cartridge box is not ripe. If it ever comes to that and I am not too feeble to participate, you know where I will be. But for the sake of my children and grandchildren I certainly do not relish the thought of fighting guerrilla war. Also, read Unintended Consequences by John Ross. One by one quietly.
BTW, this is a big country. The urban areas will burn in the event the real shooting starts. DC and state houses do not have enough boots on the ground should the shooting start to control NYC, Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Miami, LA, Houston, etc. Who will come after me and mine in our gopher hole? Definitely not the county sheriff who happens to be a long time acquaintance.
Frog,
Unless you are in a metro area, you will need no defense beyond the means of defense every adult should have available 24/7. Blacks and latinos might make things dangerous for many, but the Korean American store owners can be quite testy with their AR15s, 12 gauges, and Glocks.
Myron Magnet in the City Journal on Alexis de Tocqueville and the end of democracy in America: FASCINATING and sobering:
http://city-journal.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b75d222a8ff4ade269f9efd3b&id=2135c50005&e=48ca5e0ae7
Victor Davis Hanson’s article is sobering. He’s out in rural California, and he has LESS protection — actually, none — from any “authorities.” Illegal aliens have swamped his county and behave just like they did in Bolivia. And it looks a lot like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdqWlW4-dDg
blert Says:
“He has been true to them, hence his 100% turnout, in Black districts, 2012.”
IIRC, in a number of black districts, Barry’s totals were greater than the number of registered voters.
It might even be said that Venezuela, like every other country, is receiving Divine Punishment, or natural punishment, or merely it is evil punishing evil. They fell for the con, now they burn for it.
Most people think Soddom and Gomorrah were some fabled cities that God destroyed.
From my stand point, that might have just happened in this century as well.
These things now apply to venezuela…
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
This is venezuelaRadio; our listeners asked us: “What is the difference between capitalism and socialism?”
We’re answering: “In a capitalist society man exploits man, and in a socialist one, the other way around.”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
A woman walking in the street is carrying a bag full of rolls of toilet paper.
A passer-by opens his mouth, “Hey, mother, where did you buy it?”
“Buy? Are you crazy? Where could I buy it nowadays? They are five years old. I am taking them back from the cleaners.”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Seven paradoxes of the socialist state:
Nobody works, but the plan is always fulfilled.
The plan is fulfilled, but the shelves in the stores are empty.
The shelves are empty, but nobody starves;
nobody starves, but everybody is unhappy;
everybody is unhappy, but nobody complains;
nobody complains, but the jails are full.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
On the occasion of the anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, a meeting of Party members is held in a village. The Chairman of the local Soviet gives a speech,
“Dear comrades! Let’s look at the amazing achievements of our Party after the revolution. For example, here sits Maria. Who was she before? An illiterate peasant woman, she had but one dress and no shoes. And now? She is an exemplary milkmaid known over the entire region. Or look at Ivan Andreev. He was the poorest man in this village, had no horse, no cow, and even no axe. And now? He is a tractor driver, and has two pairs of shoes! Or look at Trofim Semenovich Alekseev. He was a nasty hooligan, a lowest drunkard, a dirty gadabout. Nobody trusted him even with a snowdrift in wintertime, as he would steal anything his gaze fell upon. And now he’s a Secretary of the Party Committee!”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
A man died and was sent to the paradise. After a while, he became bored with the paradise, with the eternal quiet, abundance of flowers, absence of worries. So he requested to let him visit the hell as a tourist. God consented. In the hell, he saw people playing cards, drinking wine, and making love. He liked it very much and upon return to the paradise applied for a transfer to hell for good. God consented. As soon a he appeared at the hell’s gate, demons grabbed him and pushed him into a barrel with hot tar.
“Stop it! I was here with a visit and saw the people drinking vodka, playing cards, making love.”
“Don’t confuse the area designated for tourists and sustained by the Propaganda Department, with this area which is for residents.”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
During the war, Stalin discussed with Marshal Zhukov the plans for a new offensive. “What do you think, comrade Zhukov, what direction should we choose for the attack?”
“West, comrade Stalin.”
“Go and think, comrade Zhukov!”
As Zhukov walked out, he muttered, “What a pig!”
Stalin’s secretary Poskrebyshev overheard the Marshal and reported to Stalin. Zhukov was ordered back to Stalin’s office.
“Whom did you have in mind when you said ‘What a pig?’ Stalin asked.
“Of course, I meant Hitler,” Zhukov said.
“Then whom did you have in mind, comrade Poskrebyshev?” Stalin said.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Stalin is dead and things have begun to lighten up a bit relatively speaking. An old couple live in an apartment in Moscow and she sends him down to buy some meat for supper. After queueing for the obligatory three hours he gets to the counter and the woman says ‘No more meat, meat finished’. He cracks and starts raving ‘I fought in the Revolution, I fought for Lenin in the First World War and for Stalin in the Second World War and we are still in this shit?’ One of the leather-jacketed brigade takes him on one side and says ‘Look old man you know you can’t talk like this. Just think, a few years ago you would have been shot for saying these things.’ The old man trudges home. His wife seeing him empty-handed says ‘Run out of meat again have they?’ He says: ‘It’s worse than that, they’ve run out of bullets.’
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
This is Venezuela Radio; our listeners asked us: “We are told that the communism is already seen at the horizon.” Then, what is a horizon?”
We’re answering: “Horizon is an imaginary line which moves away each time you approach it.”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
This is Venezuela Radio; our listeners asked us: “Why policemen always walk the streets in teams of three?”
We’re answering: “The partners in the police team are always chosen in such a way that one of them knows how to read, the other how to write, and the third one, naturally, has to keep watch over those two intellectuals.”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
This is Venezuela Radio; our listeners asked us: “What is the difference between the Constitutions of the USA and USSR?” Both guarantee freedom of speech.”
We’re answering: “Yes, but the Constitution of the USA also guarantees freedom after the speech.”
I have seen the future and ran away.
At first the move to America from the former USSR made me feel as though I had made a jump in time, from the stagnant depraved past into a distant dynamic future.
There was an abundance of commonly available futuristic contraptions, machines, and appliances that made everyday existence easier and more enjoyable. Less obvious but just as exciting was the media’s openness: I no longer needed to read between the lines to know what was happening.
Most importantly, there was honesty, dignity, and respect in relations among people.
Today I’m feeling like a time traveler again.
Only this time the productive, honest and self-reliant America is vanishing in the past, as we are quickly approaching the all too familiar future.
It is the future of equal poverty, one-party rule, media mooching, government looting, bureaucratic corruption, rigged elections, underground literature, half-whispered jokes, and the useful habit of looking over your shoulder.
-=–=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
In the Soviet Union telling political jokes was in a sense an extreme sport: according to Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code), “anti-Soviet propaganda” was a potentially capital offense. Historian Roy Medvedev looked through the files of Stalin’s political prisoners and concluded that 200,000 people were imprisoned for telling jokes, such as this:
Three prisoners in the gulag get to talking about why they are there.
“I am here because I always got to work five minutes late, and they charged me with sabotage,” says the first.
“I am here because I kept getting to work five minutes early, and they charged me with spying,” says the second.
“I am here because I got to work on time every day,” says the third, “and they charged me with owning a western watch.”
-=–=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The existence of the threat, the possibility that the teller could pay dearly for telling a political joke – with interrogation and imprisonment – created a separate genre of jokes:
Conversation in a prison:
“What are you in for?”
“For laziness. I was at a party and someone told a joke. I went home and thought: Should I inform now, or wait till the morning? In the end, I said to myself, I’ll go tomorrow. That night they took me away.”
-=–=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev are traveling together on a train when suddenly it lurches to a stop.
Stalin has the conductor shot. The train doesn’t move.
Khrushchev rehabilitates the conductor. The train still doesn’t move.
Brezhnev closes the curtains and says, “Now, we’re moving.”
-=–=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Remember the fall of the Berlin wall?
Remember the celebrations of how the East European citizens will now have “democracy”?
This is what neo’s article reminds me of.
Democracy is important, but not the be all and end all for Liberty.
Hong Kong, until 1997, had NO elections, but was one of the freest places on earth, and, inside a generation or two, zoomed to one of the top level economies in the world, all without natural resources, only people.
I see in Trump and Clinton (and Obama before her) two sides of the same coin. If it comes to an election between the two, then it won’t be much of a choice at all. Chaos vs Corruption (or is that Chaos and Corruption vs Corruption).
In the end, too many people seem to be willing to trade their freedom bit by bit for very little benefit (2008 it was the “Obama phone”, for some today it is a “Wall”, as if these things addressed the core problems we face).
I see a lot of comments here about Obama and the left, and some whining along racial lines.
Blame them all you wish folks, but if we all were honest, we ought to blame ourselves.
Too many think Liberty is a Right, when it is a Responsibility.
Just how involved and committed were we each to getting the right people elected and holding elected officials accountable?
Probably not much, instead leaving it to others. Expecting, hoping, not caring that what those others do represent our interests, or maintain our Liberty.
We cannot lose all hope if we are faced with Trump vs Clinton. Didn’t the Founders face worse?
We just need to get off our collective duffs and work at it.
Eric calls it “activism”, I call it “getting involved”.
When one man does not understand economics, it is called ignorance. When millions people do not understand economics, it is called political movement or ideology.
I’m beginning to conclude that this prideful denial will, perhaps more than any other factor, result in the coming civil war.
Pride is what Lucifer/Satan was said to be guilty of, for rebelling against God and thus falling to evil and the war against free agency/will.
Humans haven’t really changed all that much since Moses.
As for Matt, his prediction on Chavez was pretty spot on, so respect for that one.
Didn’t the Founders face worse?
half of their American fellows weren’t Benedict Arnolds though. Only 33% supported British loyalty, and even they weren’t traitors like Arnold.
So no, the Founding Fathers did not have it worse, since more than 50-70% of Americans are already known traitors to the nation.