A Promise To All Americans.

[lemmiwinks]

You're calling me ignorant? It's people like you that allow the government to get away with starting bullshit wars, lying and taking away our rights. "I'm sure there is a good, well informed cause" are you kidding me?!!

And the idea that the media is liberal is bullshit, the only bias journalists can get away with is in support of the right wing. No media can have any inkling of a liberal bias without being instantly hammered by the right. For example... Fox News... Do some research before saying stupid shit, why do you think you never heard the media arguing against the war in Iraq even though the general consensus of the rest of the world was that Iraq had no WMDs? The only reason you hear about it now is because even the republicans realize how much they fucked up with Iraq.


I'm glad that not everyone in our country is as ignorant as you, or we would be screwed for sure.

[SmokingDjinn]

I don't choose to make this into an argument so I will not even deign to reply to most of your rhetoric, however if you will re-read my post I never called you ignorant. I simply was trying to express that if you don't understand the quotations by machiavelli, it is your choice to remain ignorant in the matter.

[lemmiwinks]

As for Machiavelli, I beleive he is making an assertion on human nature, you can beleive it, or remain ignorant.

I understand it perfectly, but I certainly don't believe it.

[SmokingDjinn]

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

[ZenSilk]

Anyway, i'm not fighting a war. So fuck you if you vote for someone who gets us into one. And by the looks of iour choices for candidates....it could be very likely.

[lemmiwinks]

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Oh it's Shakespeare now! But where's the relevance? Any idiot can throw out random quotes, it doesn't mean they aren't still idiots.

[Sariél]

, you can beleive (sic) it, or remain ignorant.

k

knowing about something and believing it are two separate things.

fighting ignorance with illiteracy?

[james]

I had to hear it from the mouth of a marine who has been there to hear of the progress we are making.

That really depends on who you talk to, where they were, and what they were doing. I can think of six military people I know who served (or are serving) in Iraq, and I have six different answers about whether we're making progress. That would be seven answers, but the one I went to school with is dead. Edited December 13, 2007 by james

[Layla]

If Israel gets involved in ANYTHING, you bet your ass we'll be involved. It's shameful. America is Israel's bitch.

Chance of war in Iran is non-existent. Just because pundits are banging the war drums doesn't mean that the public is ready to jump in to another war.

People are sick of the war we're in now. Jesus himself couldn't talk them in to moving next door for another 5+ years of fighting. Plus, Iran would be a harder fight, and I think Iran could gather allies against us.

A draft is political suicide, btw.

That being said, if a conflict arises between Israel and Iran, I'd bet we become involved. But we won't initiate anything with Iran. No way.

[SmokingDjinn]

Israel is our allie, we help our allies. If you think about it, if anything, Israel is America's bitch, but I don't really think either are either's bitch.

[gaia.plateau]

If Israel gets involved in ANYTHING, you bet your ass we'll be involved. It's shameful. America is Israel's bitch.

The first sentence is true... but it's more accurate to say that Israel is the dog of the United States, rather than vice versa. It's quite similar to the relationship between Germany and the Austria-Hungary (formerly HRE) from the end of the 19th century until the First World War. Our abstinence from civilizational annihilation today depends heavily upon the US not "letting loose the dogs of war", by which I mean Zionists who feel threatened by the somewhat hostile Islamic states surrounding them which are growing rapidly in power (Iran most notably).

[cassinho]

Definitely Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Venezuela
Probably Russia
Possibly China, India, North Korea, Cuba, Nicaragua

Haha We are not anything to be scared about my friend, we dont really have a special link to Iran, it's just a populist president tryign to gather around international anti yankee friends, but Venezuela wont engage in a war like that, it would be stupid for us

[gaia.plateau]

Definitely Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Venezuela
Probably Russia
Possibly China, India, North Korea, Cuba, Nicaragua

Haha We are not anything to be scared about my friend, we dont really have a special link to Iran, it's just a populist president tryign to gather around international anti yankee friends, but Venezuela wont engage in a war like that, it would be stupid for us

I didn't say that your country was cause for fear, I said that it could be an ally of Iran, which by verbal pact it already is.

I've lost about 99% of my support for Chavez in the last 365 days, but prior to that I would have called him one of the world's best leaders both internationally and domestically. Chavez isn't anti-yankee, he's anti-hegemon, and two decades ago the great majority of political leaders and scholars were of the same perception.

Increasing multi-polarity in the world is probably a good thing, not something to be afraid of.

[cassinho]

Definitely Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Venezuela
Probably Russia
Possibly China, India, North Korea, Cuba, Nicaragua

Haha We are not anything to be scared about my friend, we dont really have a special link to Iran, it's just a populist president tryign to gather around international anti yankee friends, but Venezuela wont engage in a war like that, it would be stupid for us

I didn't say that your country was cause for fear, I said that it could be an ally of Iran, which by verbal pact it already is.

I've lost about 99% of my support for Chavez in the last 365 days, but prior to that I would have called him one of the world's best leaders both internationally and domestically. Chavez isn't anti-yankee, he's anti-hegemon, and two decades ago the great majority of political leaders and scholars were of the same perception.

Increasing multi-polarity in the world is probably a good thing, not something to be afraid of.

You have the wrong image of him or you know very little about him if you really think he's one of the world's best leaders domestically, Chavez is anti-yankee all the way

And Venezuela doesn't have an alliance with Iran what so ever, he just likes to make good thing for Iran since they are against USA.

[gaia.plateau]

I didn't say that your country was cause for fear, I said that it could be an ally of Iran, which by verbal pact it already is.

I've lost about 99% of my support for Chavez in the last 365 days, but prior to that I would have called him one of the world's best leaders both internationally and domestically. Chavez isn't anti-yankee, he's anti-hegemon, and two decades ago the great majority of political leaders and scholars were of the same perception.

Increasing multi-polarity in the world is probably a good thing, not something to be afraid of.

You have the wrong image of him or you know very little about him if you really think he's one of the world's best leaders domestically, Chavez is anti-yankee all the way

And Venezuela doesn't have an alliance with Iran what so ever, he just likes to make good thing for Iran since they are against USA.

Fortunately my professor thought differently when she gave me an 89% on my 25-page 400-level paper dealing largely with Chavez's domestic policies...

Regarding Chavez being anti-yankee, if he was against Americans, why would he provide cheap oil to their poor? Chavez is simply against one state commanding global power.

No alliance with Iran whatsoever? Not according to reality.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5354812.stm
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/1654
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article....RTICLE_ID=48751

[JtowninAtown]

Yay for thesis papers!

[gaia.plateau]

Yay for thesis papers!

wasn't even a term paper, technically. I had two due in that class in one semester.

[JtowninAtown]

I'm up to 65 pages for my master thesis already...Greek and Roman Playwrights and Poets...gay...I know...
That is 2 semesters worth of writing for you...also 187 sources... Edited January 4, 2008 by JtowninAtown

[gaia.plateau]

That is a lot of sources for 65 pages

How many do you expect it will be in total? What is your MA?

[cassinho]

I didn't say that your country was cause for fear, I said that it could be an ally of Iran, which by verbal pact it already is.

I've lost about 99% of my support for Chavez in the last 365 days, but prior to that I would have called him one of the world's best leaders both internationally and domestically. Chavez isn't anti-yankee, he's anti-hegemon, and two decades ago the great majority of political leaders and scholars were of the same perception.

Increasing multi-polarity in the world is probably a good thing, not something to be afraid of.

You have the wrong image of him or you know very little about him if you really think he's one of the world's best leaders domestically, Chavez is anti-yankee all the way

And Venezuela doesn't have an alliance with Iran what so ever, he just likes to make good thing for Iran since they are against USA.

Fortunately my professor thought differently when she gave me an 89% on my 25-page 400-level paper dealing largely with Chavez's domestic policies...

Regarding Chavez being anti-yankee, if he was against Americans, why would he provide cheap oil to their poor? Chavez is simply against one state commanding global power.

No alliance with Iran whatsoever? Not according to reality.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5354812.stm
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/1654
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article....RTICLE_ID=48751

Im a Venezuelan 23 y/o lawyer who lives in Venezuela, Chavez' treatment to his own country has been totally poor, economicwise this has been the worst gov that Venezuela hada, in Venezuela there was a say that goes like ''theres no good or bad presidents, just presidents who has good or bad oil prices'' unfortunatly, Chavez has been getting the highest oil price if the history and our Economy has been falling like never before.

Venezuela was the target of really big companies, like Toyota, P&G, etc, right now alal of them are closing here and moving to other countries that actually have been going thru a real growing, like Colombia and Chile.

2007 closed with the highest inflation rates of all latin american countries, there's a control exchange imposed in the country for a couple years now, this is going to be the 3rd year of it, if you know a little about economics, a exchange control is supposed to be emergency and transitory and shouldnt last more than 6month, anad that's not the worst part, they just DECREASED our right to buy in internet, it used to be 3000$ right now we can only spend 400$ over the internet, FOR THE WHOLE YEAR (i already spent 50% of it i guess i wont beable to pay the whole year for my World of Warcraft account).

The corruption has been increasing exponencially for the last 5 years, he have been governing for almost 10 years now (i wonder if in any of your countries you'd accept a gov of 10 years) and he will get out on 2012... all of this thx to his constitution change and a little cheat he did to win a couple more years, thx god he lost the last election so he could be 7 more years.

All the election are tricked, he gives nationality to whoever who wants to be venezuelan in an ilegal way, you can come here a, say you're comunist and you'll get a free national ID and probably a passport (if there was any way to get a passport in venezuela) and you will beable tovote in the next election, that's how our permanent electoral register (Registro Electoral Permanente in spanish) is totally corrupted, and that corrupts all the elections therefore... if you know spanish or if i knew a abetter english i could explaain this better...

I dont really wanna get involved about the International part cuz thats a lot more subjetive, but its not really the best either, but right now, thx to his international policies, venezuela has stupid and senseless obligations to other countries that doesnt benefies us.

There's a lot more points i can go thru to let you know that Chavez is not even a good COUNTRY leader, heck he's not even a good leader if you know about his try to strike the gov in 1992 you'd know that

If you're not Venezuelan and you're not even in the country i find it really hard to actually understand or notice what im saying, and yes he is anti-yankee, he just cant get away from USA since our economy is based in your country, w/o USA, venezuela has no money, he offers money to the american's poor so he can win some points in the international comunity since he has been sabotaging himself (w/o noticing) when he fought with Zapatero and the King Juan Carlos, and also when he fought with Uribe, for example, since he's alway fighting to other mandataries who actually makes him look stupid Edited January 4, 2008 by cassinho

[gaia.plateau]

Venezuela was the target of really big companies, like Toyota, P&G, etc, right now alal of them are closing here and moving to other countries that actually have been going thru a real growing, like Colombia and Chile.

Do you really consider this to be a bad thing?

In Latin America, the popular theory of "Economic growth = Economic prosperity", which is tenuous in the small handful of best-case scenarios, has historically proven to be catastrophic in nearly every case, the lone exceptions being Chile and Costa Rica. Columbia, which you cite as being an example of economic success, has serious socioecomic problems like the total lack of education and healthcare in many regions. Look at Bolivia, or Nicaragua, or Haiti, where governments have been forced to accept structural adjustment programmes because of coercion by IMIs and Western corporations, where majorities of their populations live on 20 cents a day or less. Columbia as an example is politically controlled more by foreign investors and corporations like Dynecorp and Exxon, whose paramilitary forces dwarf national armies, than by the elected government. Even Brazil, the most economically prosperous country in Latin America, suffers the greatest gap between rich and poor in the world.

2007 closed with the highest...World of Warcraft account).

You're representative of the extremely small, wealthy population of Venezuela, and you have every right and reason to resent the current administration and vote against it. I'm sympathetic to your situation but if you think objectively about the long-term prosperity of your nation, and for the proliferation of opportunities not just for the rich but for everyone, simply injecting economic growth into the country at the expense of everything else is not a good idea.

The corruption has been increasing exponencially for the last 5 years, he have been governing for almost 10 years now (i wonder if in any of your countries you'd accept a gov of 10 years) and he will get out on 2012... all of this thx to his constitution change and a little cheat he did to win a couple more years, thx god he lost the last election so he could be 7 more years.

No concrete dispute there, as I expounded I've been losing faith at an increasing rate in Chavez domestically, but bear in mind that there has been extensive international monitoring in every election in Venezuela over the past decade. Bear also in mind that Chavez' nationalization policies, including his attempt at nationalizing the electric company, have bolstered the political sovereignty and democracy of your country against institutions that would undermine it.

you can come here a, say you're comunist and you'll get a free national ID and probably a passport

Can you source any evidence of this? Chavez has spoken against political communism before, and all his policies are clearly democratic and socialist.

if you know spanish or if i knew a abetter english i could explaain this better...

I'm fluent, albeit very rusty, in Spanish, though I probably won't be able to comprehend any scholarly or technical terms you could use. If it helps please feel free to try.

I dont really wanna get involved about the International part cuz thats a lot more subjetive, but its not really the best either, but right now, thx to his international policies, venezuela has stupid and senseless obligations to other countries that doesnt benefies us.

What obligations?

There's a lot more points i can go thru to let you know that Chavez is not even a good COUNTRY leader, heck he's not even a good leader if you know about his try to strike the gov in 1992 you'd know that

By all means.

yes he is anti-yankee, he just cant get away from USA since our economy is based in your country

Unless you mean that the Venezuelan economy is based in Canada, it's not my country

You didn't refute my argument that Chavez supports Americans, just not America, by providing cheap oil to the poorer regions of the US.

You also didn't refute my argument that Venezuela is in many ways allied with Iran, as supported by the three articles I cited (and I could grab a dozen academic journal articles for a more peer-reviewed plethora of evidence, if you like).

I was entirely against Chavez's movement to give the executive the power to decree law for 18 months, though I accept that this is probably the only way to nationalize electricity which I believe would help your country's poor momentously. It was a case of the road to hell being paved with good intentions, and I believe that Chavez has become corrupted to a significant degree by his large amount of power. Edited January 4, 2008 by gaia.plateau

[cassinho]

Do you really consider this to be a bad thing?

In Latin America, the popular theory of "Economic growth = Economic prosperity", which is tenuous in the small handful of best-case scenarios, has historically proven to be catastrophic in nearly every case, the lone exceptions being Chile and Costa Rica. Columbia, which you cite as being an example of economic success, has serious socioecomic problems like the total lack of education and healthcare in many regions. Look at Bolivia, or Nicaragua, or Haiti, where governments have been forced to accept structural adjustment programmes because of coercion by IMIs and Western corporations, where majorities of their populations live on 20 cents a day or less. Columbia as an example is politically controlled more by foreign investors and corporations like Dynecorp and Exxon, whose paramilitary forces dwarf national armies, than by the elected government. Even Brazil, the most economically prosperous country in Latin America, suffers the greatest gap between rich and poor in the world.

It is indeed a bad thing, the less invertions this country gets, the less his economic will growth, and also the reason they are leaving is cuz theres not ''seguridad juridica'' dont know the translation but its like law security (its when you know they wont be changing arbitrary the rules of the game)

You cant compare Bolivia, Nicaragua or Haiti with Venezuela in any aspect, those are very poor countries with a very bad luck geographicly and naturaly wise (they got nothing, Bolivia dont even have seas).

You can compare us with Brazil, Columbia or Argentina, which btw, they are open to big companies inversion, as a matter of fact, after Brazil, Venezuela was their target for establishing in Latin America... not anymore

I come from a medium economic class, but you for example dont understand what means less money for the ppl, it means that all the prices will get higher, since you got no option to get $ from the official maarket, instead you need to buy them from a black market cuz honestly 400$ is not a crap, even the low economic class was being beneficed from having 3000$ to spend, most of the sold their right to get em and they got money from it, not anymore.

And dont believe that venezuela has 85% of extreme poverty, it-s not true, it-s more like 60% which is still a lot i know...

The long term prosperity of my nation was killed by a gov that kept a exchange control for 2 years and going

No concrete dispute there, as I expounded I've been losing faith at an increasing rate in Chavez domestically, but bear in mind that there has been extensive international monitoring in every election in Venezuela over the past decade. Bear also in mind that Chavez' nationalization policies, including his attempt at nationalizing the electric company, have bolstered the political sovereignty and democracy of your country against institutions that would undermine it.

International monitoring was just in one election (last presidential ones) and to be honest that monitoring ends up being a diplomatical thing, none will contradict the results. They dont monitor the Permanent electoral register, which is the main problem.
For example, Guiness record says that the oldest person alive is like 112 y/o, well in venezuela there are ppl 120 and 130 y/o that are still voting on every election, i know for a matter of fact people that in the very begening they were chavist and now they have 5 differents ID so they caan vote multiple times.
In the last election that Chavez lost (the reform) wasa also tricked up, they announced that after counting 88% of the votes, the results were 50.7% vs 49.3% loosing chavez, but that was a 'irreversible tendency' which is imposible to be irreversible, simple maths, there was less difference than vote to count (the difference was about 700k and there was still like 2 millions or more to count)

Can you source any evidence of this? Chavez has spoken against political communism before, and all his policies are clearly democratic and socialist.

Yes, in the very first years he spoke agains communism, right now he has picture of Che Guevara and Fidel in every guvernamental dependency, also he speaks a lot about marxism and leninism (spelling?)
Yo dont really know man, his policies ARE NOT democratic, well even venezuela has been declared as one of the countries of latin america where has no democracy or it is so endangered, just with haiti, bolivia and Us.
Having 3 elections or so every year is not democracy, it's unstability, he has not implemented socialist policies either, in a matter of fact he killed social security for example

I dont really wanna get involved about the International part cuz thats a lot more subjetive, but its not really the best either, but right now, thx to his international policies, venezuela has stupid and senseless obligations to other countries that doesnt benefies us.

What obligations?

Venezuela have to supply countries like Cuba, Rep Dominican, Iran, etc with many oil barrils per day, our pay back is a couple middle school teachers and a couple non prepared medics.

You didn't refute my argument that Chavez supports Americans, just not America, by providing cheap oil to the poorer regions of the US.

He's not supporting America, you gotta see behind that, he just wanna ruin his worst enemy Bush, ''hey see, bush cant give you cheap oil, but i can, im so good, i support americans, im good he's bad!'', hey man, he supports anything he can get advantage from... this country has many problems with presupuest, theres a lot of institution that needs money but the country refuse to paay it, instead they donate money to gobernations in Bolivia, Ecuator, etc...

For your information, Venezuela has a BIG deficit of hospitals, prisions and school, that chavez should be solving with all the money he gets (as i told you, he has the historic higher oil prices ever) instead of giving awaay the money, well heck, if he was socialist he should be doing htis even if he had no money

You also didn't refute my argument that Venezuela is in many ways allied with Iran, as supported by the three articles I cited (and I could grab a dozen academic journal articles for a more peer-reviewed plethora of evidence, if you like).

Venezuela has, of course some economical agreements, they are not militaristic allied, if you decide to attack Iran, the worst thing you can get from venezuela is a face like this . just the same otherwise. Venezuela has economical agreements with USA also

I was entirely against Chavez's movement to give the executive the power to decree law for 18 months, though I accept that this is probably the only way to nationalize electricity which I believe would help your country's poor momentously. It was a case of the road to hell being paved with good intentions, and I believe that Chavez has become corrupted to a significant degree by his large amount of power.

He nationalized the electricity and the phone company cuz they were ''militaristic strategic'' not to help the nation. actually one of the moments of venezuela biggest economicaal growing was when the electricity and the phone were privatized, also since that moment venezuela had a good elect and phone service which was a pure crap when it was a national company.

He destroyed 2 of the most important, stable and growing companies of the country, also kicking out internationa invertionist like verizon or AT&T (cant remember which one own part of CANTV) from the country, maaking any other international invertionist get scared about this situation (seguridad juridicaa as i toldyou).

He concentrates Legislative, Juditial and Executive powers which mean its not democratic at all, he's violating most of the laws about signing international agreements, you can't go to the juditial power to annule anything cuz whatever you say they will blend the law (by inimaginary proportions, in an absurdly bad way) so everything he does is legal.

And about hegemony, man, dont know if you know this, but when he won to be president, he got all his friends from the strike he did on 1992 into the governament, he also put his father as gobernor in one state, he has several friends and family in several gubernamental dependencies.

[cassinho]

I suck at this forum, but i refuse to edit those qoutes, i hope you understand hahaha, if not i guess ill re do it

[cassinho]

I invite you to read this: http://www.abpnoticias.com/boletin_tempora...icados/258.html
In case you dont understand me send me a PM to translate it for you.

It's a comunication from Venezuela agains Uribe, if you read it closely, you can catch some anti-yankee comments, also you can see that he likes the columbian guerrilla more than the columbia's gov, that's not really good for a president

I wonder if you'd like that your president was very good friend of Osama Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein

[nicayotte]

i think i'll move to JDs garage