Agreed with most of this, but come on, I said the CIA hasn’t helped matters. I didn’t blame everything on them, nor did I say all of the problems of the lower class are the fault of the system. You say don’t oversimply then reduce my points in the same manner.
The human element is obviously a huge part of it and one of the tenets I still struggle with under a Leninist socialist framework is democratic centralism. The idea that we all arrive at one idea through debate and push forward on it as a group regardless of how the individual thinks. Not that I don’t think it has its merits, but to your point on the human element, history has shown this likely will last all of five minutes as people develop feels and grudges and split off.
I know very little about Venezuela so I’ll decline to comment on that for the time being. Still working my way through the early 1900s. But yeah, socialist/communist regimes of the past have a lot of mistakes that can be learned from. What was eye opening to me was to see the dichotomy of corporate media treatment of client states versus enemies of the state, and the willingness to just take Pentagon sourcing as fact. An example would be the indiscriminate bombing of Cambodia for a decade which was kept hidden from the public. Destabilize the region, destroy its economy, then suddenly jump back in with stories once the Khmer Rouge fill the power vacuum to be like good god look how evil Communism is.
I’ve heard the horror stories about socialism/communism since I was a kid. I didn’t hear the other side or any Marxist-Leninist critique of capitalism until I was in my 30’s. There’s something worth exploring there at the very least, if only because its new and it makes a lot of sense (in its critiques at least, the solutions are still up for debate).
I wish we could adjust to the point where we see what it looks like when we release all non-violent drug offenders. Studies also show that drug use is relatively equal along race lines but the people charged with drug offenses are disproportionately people of color. We have clearly made a choice who we want kept out of society.
Yeah don’t disagree with what you’re saying. I may have oversimplified, the CIA was the one point you kept bringing up. Anyhow, fair enough just throwing in my own $0.02
So I’m sure everyone here has read the Twilight novels so you’re familiar with how the werewolves get created. Basically, as more vampires appear near the reservation, more members of the tribe turn into werewolves to keep it even. What the hell am I talking about, you ask? Well, I think it’s apparent as Turd went spinning off his axis to the far right, ltj evolved into a socialist to maintain balance. All is right in the world. Carry on.