It's going to be interesting in the coming decades...

Tell me Chavez isn't bankrolling this guy like he's bank rolled every commie in Latin America for the last few years.
 
So what's new? Hasn't the US bank rolled most right wing junta in Latin America in the past decades? And it seems that the people like him enough, giving him 47.5% of the votes. Isn't democracy crap when you are on the losing side?
 
Suppose so. But in most competent military juntas, money eventually flows into the country and then it's up to the people to make it a democracy.

Examples:
South Korea
Indonesia
Argentina

That's what I can think of, right off the top of my head.

Communism has no such record and tends to be even worse in terms of human rights abuses than most military dictatorships.

It's going to be an interesting few decades coming up, but whether these guys vote in Communists or whatnot is really none of my business. Let them. They're going to pay for it. The only part that's going to suck is taking in all those refugees.
Again, I find it mystifying that people have such a casual attitude towards Communism and such a blind hatred towards Fascism when they're just as bad as the other. I suppose people like Ted will learn when Communism does indeed become the defacto system in Western Europe. There will be two winners: the guy who owns the party and flies.
 
Hate to break it to you but communism is dead and buried even the communists have accepted this and moved on to varying degrees of corruption driven capitalism of which Western Europe is immune to due to a couple of centuries of ingrained socialism.

Lets look at whats left of the communist world.
- Cuba
- Venezula
- North Korea

Any others?
I am not sure any of these countries are going to lead a worldwide peoples revolt hell most of these countries will be lucky to last the decade without a revolution of their own.

The Soviet Union is dead and buried and it doesn't matter whether Putin wants a return to the "good ole days" or not the fact is that the Soviet Union will never be resurrected.

China well there is more chance of the USA becoming communist than there is of China doing it, they are far to busy making money and spreading influence to ever take on communism.
 
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Nicarugua (Oretega is back in power)
El Salvador just elected the old Communist party now called socialist back into power.
Boliva is dancing to Chavez tune as is Ecuador

Your right the for all real purposes communism is dead. However it's playing very well in Latin America right now.
 
Yeah in Latin America it seems to be making a comeback in force.
The only concern I have with Communism making its way there is not about politics, rather a concern about the impending disaster. When you see news about a tropical storm hitting some far away place on TV, you feel bad for the folks who live there. Similar deal really.
MontyB, I don't think Communism is dead and buried. It's going to be around for a while because its root is based on alleviating human suffering. It's a noble motivation which people with a heart will care about. Unfortunately it just goes downhill from there and those involved in it don't know when to let go and there is a seemingly unlimited supply of folks lacking the proper education and money to vote them into power in poor countries.
Hence, it is more dangerous than Fascism. Fascism, you can see that hate filled truck coming from a mile away, but Communism shows up in the form of an angel.
 
My problem is that Hugo is setting himself up to be the head commie of combined commie block of countries.

Its got nothing to do with the people, goverment never does. It has everything to do with Hugo's dream of being the liberator ala Castro of all of latin america and thereby the benevolent dictator.
 
Little Columbia has a way bigger military than Hugo's Venezuela. Any one fearing some great Communist Venezuelan Manifest that will sweep South America are just old farts missing the good old days of the Cold War.
 
No that is not true.
Also you can't take Colombia's situation for granted either. You don't know if the people there will start to sing to the tune of Communists and follow yet another charismatic leader. Not many of us miss the Cold War and certainly with the sort of stuff going on, another conflict is the last thing we need.
Remember, Venezuela used to be on the US's good books as well.
 
But what is the fundamental issue is the majority in some Latin American countries want an extreme leftist government. It is the wish of the majority and because the "have-not's" are the majority they vote for someting else.
But I can't grasp why it bothers some of you so much? It can't be because of some altruistic reason, otherwise you would oppose the right-wing junta as well.... So what is it that you fear a red South America so much? It can't be economics, otherwise the US wouldn't have maintained their lucrative trade bargains with that continent. Is it because some of you really think they would march on your border and try to change your way of life?
 
In the early 1960s, the US Government decided that the Vietnamese people really didnt want a communist form of government. Their anti-communist fervor at the time was so strong we actually decided that it would be actually better to prop up a string of rightwing tyrants in South Vietnam, all more corrupt that the last against the expressed wishes of the local populace. Needless to say, this didnt go over very well with the locals who were justifiably sick of western powers intervening in their affairs, and the result of which was the Vietnam War.

40 years later, Are we really going to start playing kingmaker in South America, or should we take a hint from history and leave these people to their own destiny?
 
mmarsh said:
In the early 1960s, the US Government decided that the Vietnamese people really didnt want a communist form of government. Their anti-communist fervor at the time was so strong we actually decided that it would be actually better to prop up a string of rightwing tyrants in South Vietnam, all more corrupt that the last against the expressed wishes of the local populace. Needless to say, this didnt go over very well with the locals who were justifiably sick of western powers intervening in their affairs, and the result of which was the Vietnam War.

40 years later, Are we really going to start playing kingmaker in South America, or should we take a hint from history and leave these people to their own destiny?
Click to expand...
The ignorant suck in on the pie in the sky BS that text book Communism is, & then find out about the reality too late. How many have been killed by thier own Govt as a result 150 Million? More?
 
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George got it right.
They were so happy to let them in only to suffer the consequences.
The only thing that "saved" Vietnam per se was it was more of a nationalist movement than a real Communist one. The real Communist movement was in Cambodia and that led to horrendous results.
I do have a concern for South Americans voting in Communists not for my safety or wellbeing but theirs. I feel bad that they too will most probably suffer the same fate as many who supported Communists before them.
Mmarsh isn't wrong either about the South Vietnamese. There really was no saving those guys. On the flipside the dictatorship in South Korea had its head screwed on straight and managed to save the country. In Indonesia, the dictatorship under Suharto, though corrupt as hell, still did improve the country somewhat and kept it business friendly enough so that when Indonesia became a democracy, it still had a viable economy running. Plus they had a bloody campaign against Communist guerillas so they're pretty anti-Communist in this neck of the woods.
And I think I'm in agreement as well. We're just going to have to let them suffer the consequences of their decisions. It's going to be hard to watch for those who care enough and you can bet it'll be the US which will be called upon by its Latino community to go and help when the Communist regimes do fall, leaving behind the usual destroyed infrastructure, starving people etc.
I personally don't really care about the business aspect because I'm not involved in it and I haven't made career decisions based on pay either. Some of the rewards may have been pretty darn big actually. I said no... I think I did the right thing but I suppose time will tell. The losers will be the South American people.
As for right wing dictatorships, there have been success stories where right wing dictatorships brought wealth into the country and were eventually overthrown to create a viable and wealthy democracy. That's the only reason why I give them some benefit of the doubt, though the bad ones like Myanmar's Junta is obviously one regime I am no way a fan of. Examples include, Taiwan, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia (though not a democracy), Singapore and there's probably a few more. Maybe you can throw Argentina into the mix as well but I don't know their story well enough.
 
George got it wrong. But I did enjoy reading Redneck's argument. It was well thought out an rational.

It all boils down to if you believe in the right to self government. Americans fought a war over that point, but tend to be ignorant of history.

The cold war is over. The great Communist Threat coming to rape our daughters (and occasional son) are long gone.

As long as the oil flows, I could really care less if Ronald McDonald ran Venezuela.
 
The natural resources will still be sold to Capitalist countries mind you. It's not like if the country becomes Communist, the resources are no longer sold outside.
Classic case would be Romania under Communism. They produced some good stuff but Ceausescu exported the best stuff overseas and gave his own people 3rd rate junk. Romania's a really interesting case... friendly people... and they'll tell you what life was like under Communism. I don't know the sort of folks Zastava hangs out with but the Slovenians, Serbians, Romanians, Poles etc., I've met were not fans of Communism at all.
George is not wrong in that these ignorant people vote in these Communists and end up paying the price for it in the end.
Back in the 20th Century, I understand how people then would have fallen for Communism. It was largely a new thing, held great promise, was based on real grieviances that needed to be addressed but weren't... it was completely within reason to believe that it might be worth a shot. Sharper minds would have known it was a scam from the start, but for the average Joe, it would have seemed to make a lot of sense.
We now are in the 21st Century, the grand Communist experiment failed without exception and there are people who support and vote for Communists. These are the real idiots.
 
03USMC said:
My problem is that Hugo is setting himself up to be the head commie of combined commie block of countries.

Its got nothing to do with the people, goverment never does. It has everything to do with Hugo's dream of being the liberator ala Castro of all of latin america and thereby the benevolent dictator.
Click to expand...

Yeah but so what if he heads up all of "communist" Latin America they are still no more of a threat to anyone else, what is the worst possible scenario, oil may rise a little but OPEC will control that and the price of bananas will increase hardly earth shattering stuff.

The key to dealing with communism is to let it run its course and burn itself out just as every other country that has experimented with the communist theory has.

The reality is that no matter what style of government these countries have (capitalist, Communist or Socialist) until they stamp out corruption they will always be little more than Banana Republic Dictatorships.
 
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Also true.
None of these countries can pose any sort of conventional threat to the US. Once they got their Communism thing in swing, it'll be downhill for them. I dare say that in a Communist system, it's almost impossible for the government to not become corrupt.
 
Lavite said:
Little Columbia has a way bigger military than Hugo's Venezuela. Any one fearing some great Communist Venezuelan Manifest that will sweep South America are just old farts missing the good old days of the Cold War.
Click to expand...

You don't understand the issue with Columbia or the history of La revolution in Latin America, if that is your position.

Chavez was won't attack with his military he'll simply continue to support FARC with funds and safe haven and take the fight into Columbia using Columbians to do it. It's called victory from within using local forces.

As far as comparing militarys. Columbia is geared toward COIN Chavez has steadily geared his toward a more conventional force recently. Chavez is using Castros game plan.

Before calling anyone an old fart there slappy you might wanna take the time to appraise yourself of the intel of the theater your speaking about.
 
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