The Socialist Dream Crumbles in Venezuela

[Spider]

You see?

You just can't do it!

When someone refuses to answer a simple question, they've got a reason. Your reason is obviously that you can't without negating your own opinions.

[JDHURF]

[Spider]

[The Comrade]

hurf don't bother. literally no answer is acceptable to spider's question because he has convinced himself it's the silver bullet to socialism.

[The Dharma Bum]

[Spider]

Whatever mode of exchange will be dependent on whatever the conditions are. We can only speculate.

For the purposes of the question you can call it whatever you like.

[Professor]

I'm not exactly sure what we're debating, but here's my tuppence.

My in-laws are Cuban. They fled the Castro regime after Castro-soldiers forcibly removed them from their plantation, and burnt down all structures to ensure they would not return and farm the land.

My SIL recently returned and filmed a lot of the countryside. By her own words, if she had been caught filming many of the things that she did, the administration would have had some hard questions for her. One of her friends had a camera confiscated on a separate trip.

She showed grocery stores that were closed at 9am, because they were out of food. She took a picture of the bread chit that her family was issued by the government, allowing them to buy a loaf of bread once per week. She videoed the drive out of Havana (on a beautiful paved street) and into the country, where 9-out-of-10 roads were dirt. During the drive, I asked her about the fact that almost every single house had a guy sitting on the porch, and that there seemed to be multitudes of people just out walking around and visiting. It wasn't a weekend - it was a week day. She told me that many of them had jobs, but only went for a few hours per day, because they knew they'd get their food chits and paychecks (and ONLY that) regardless of how much they worked.

I asked her about the food. She said that her family procured some beef for her visit. They refused to tell her where it came from. Later, another family member said that they had bought it illegally, since the unauthorized possession or killing of a cow was punishable with prison time.

Frankly, if that's socialism, I don't want anything to do with it.

About the only highlight of the video was seeing them wearing clothes that I had discarded (and other family had brought down). They pointed happily to their "B&G Crane Company" hats, which made me smile. Then I felt horrible, because they were so happy to have my castoffs.

[Spider]

You're just begging for a No True Scotsman with that.

[The Dharma Bum]

[Professor]