• ordnance_qf_17_pounder@reddthat.com
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    14 hours ago

    Tell us what a non-authoritarian leader of Venezuela would look like to you and how they would resist the constant pressure and hostile actions of the US government, because it seems to me that leftist leaders are always denounced as authoritarian by North American and European based NGOs and governments.

    The only way to avoid being labelled as authoritarian is to be friendly to the imperial core countries, i.e. being capitalist.

    • pinguinu [any]@lemmygrad.ml
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      8 hours ago

      It’s so funny to see, when the alternative to Maduro is the Venezuelan equivalent of Yeltsin, someone hellbent on stripping their own country for parts and portraying that as “freedom”

    • Tinidril@midwest.social
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      4 hours ago

      Tell us what a non-authoritarian leader of Venezuela would look like

      Presumably they would look not-authoritarian, a description that doesn’t fit Maduro at all.

      It could well be that, in the face of US policy regarding Venezuela, only an Authoritarian could hold onto the country. That still doesn’t make Maduro not an Authoritarian.

      it seems to me that leftist leaders are always denounced as authoritarian by North American and European based NGOs and governments.

      That’s a fair observation but, again, that doesn’t mean they are wrong when they say it about Maduro. Maduro is referred to as dictator by Human Rights Watch, the Organization of American States, and other human rights organizations, including some inside Venezuela.

      Maduro is a dictator. It’s largely the fault of the US that Venezuela has a dictator. If the US succeeds in ousting Maduro, it will almost certainly replace him with an even worse Dictator. All of that can be true with no contradictions.

      • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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        2 hours ago

        Presumably they would look not-authoritarian

        And what does that even look like? Something like Allende, I’m guessing.

        Human Rights Watch

        The liberal Zionist western propaganda outlet?

    • davel@lemmy.ml
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      13 hours ago

      👆If you don’t suppress the inevitable imperial-supported bourgeois counterinsurgencies, your socialist project will go the way of Allende’s Chile.

      • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
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        10 hours ago

        The question is whether government/people should get $60/barrel revenue before expenses, maybe $40/barrel after expenses, or $10/barrel but pump 5-10x as much, bribed to be loyal to US. Long term, obviously no corruption and high revenue/profit per barrel has its advantages. It’s not as though Exxon/Chevron can’t get access to Venezuela oil with fair deals, it’s that pretending corrupt puppets are the legitimate leaders provides extortion oil costs.

        When you understand the hoops the US government is willing to jump through to get cheap foreign oil, you should understand that similar policies are used to deprive Americans of their fair share of resource revenue.

      • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        What a loser-ass mentality. It’s absolutely possible to remain just and free while being secure. Skill issue.

          • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
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            6 hours ago

            Not even going to reply to your strawman. I said that it’s weak mentality to say “ends justify the means and sacrifice justice and freedom for the sake of fighting a foreign oppressor” - maybe that’s easier to understand? Weak people, weak minds, skill issue.

            • RiverRock@lemmy.ml
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              6 hours ago

              Lol you said nothing of the sort and now you’re running away shouting random reddit bullshit for cover (what strawman? That doesnt even make sense) because you’re acutely aware but too proud to admit that your dumb Marvel-brained bullshit has no basis in reality. Who’s freedom? Who’s justice? You haven’t put five seconds of thought into this and you’re talking to people who have considered it for years or decades. You’re adorable.

              • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
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                6 hours ago

                It’s absolutely possible to remain just and free while being secure. Skill issue.

                Maybe read it again?

                • RiverRock@lemmy.ml
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                  6 hours ago

                  Name one single socialist revolution that hasn’t been immediately attacked by capital. You can’t.

        • m532@lemmy.ml
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          7 hours ago

          Just and free while being secure: “authoritarian”

          Unjust and unfree while being insecure and overrun by bears: Libertarian

          • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
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            6 hours ago

            Or you can be smart and just and have your cake and eat it too. See dozens of countries that prosper without sacrificing their freedoms and justice. You guys are just doomer losers simping for dictators because your minds are too small to imagine a real victory.

        • davel@lemmy.ml
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          7 hours ago

          ❤️Through the power of love ❤️

          What are your real-world examples—bourgeois “democracies”? If it’s so easy, why hasn’t it happened?

          The pure socialists’ ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.

          The pure socialists had a vision of a new society that would create and be created by new people, a society so transformed in its fundaments as to leave little opportunity for wrongful acts, corruption, and criminal abuses of state power. There would be no bureaucracy or self-interested coteries, no ruthless conflicts or hurtful decisions. When the reality proves different and more difficult, some on the Left proceed to condemn the real thing and announce that they “feel betrayed” by this or that revolution.

          The pure socialists see socialism as an ideal that was tarnished by communist venality, duplicity, and power cravings. The pure socialists oppose the Soviet model but offer little evidence to demonstrate that other paths could have been taken, that other models of socialism — not created from one’s imagination but developed through actual historical experience — could have taken hold and worked better. Was an open, pluralistic, democratic socialism actually possible at this historic juncture? The historical evidence would suggest it was not.

          Decentralized parochial autonomy is the graveyard of insurgency — which may be one reason why there has never been a successful anarcho-syndicalist revolution. Ideally, it would be a fine thing to have only local, self-directed, worker participation, with minimal bureaucracy, police, and military. This probably would be the development of socialism, were socialism ever allowed to develop unhindered by counterrevolutionary subversion and attack.

          One might recall how, in 1918-20, fourteen capitalist nations, including the United States, invaded Soviet Russia in a bloody but unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the revolutionary Bolshevik government.