Chavez banned all private enterprise and unsound books were burned. He also had dissidents based abroad murdered. Freedom of speech and association were absolutely squashed and acts of violent repression were numerous.
You can skip ahead to the punchline. Use a sock if you need to.
It's very simple. I think your comparison of Chavez to Gaddafi is bullshit.
Let's strike book burning and murdering dissidents abroad off the list.
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Freedom of speech and association were absolutely squashed and acts of violent repression were numerous.
Not sure about that, but I doubt it.
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With a population of only six million and annual oil revenues of US $32bn in 2010, Libya's potential is huge. Most Libyans do not feel this wealth and living conditions can be reminiscent of far poorer countries.
Translation, they have a shitload of oil that the US want to get their grubby hands on. There's a slight similarity.
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"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis D. Brandeis
"Psychos do not explode when sunlight hits them, I don't give a fuck how crazy they are." ~ S. Gecko
So, I was reading an article on the [latest] college admissions scandal when my newsfeed put up a story claiming that Roseanne Barr is planning to leave the U.S. and move to Israel.
Okay. A related story popped up in the feed, noting that she gave a speech in Tel Aviv claiming that her show was canceled because of her support for Israel. Apparently, her long and well-documented history of making racist comments had nothing to do with it.
Golly. All I can say is: "Don't let the door hit you on the way out."
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“The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.”
And speaking of college admission scandals, speaking as someone who has spent pretty-much his entire adult life working in academia, I'm shocked -- shocked I tell you -- to learn that rich people have come up with yet another way to game the system in order to get their undeserving kids into college.
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“The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.”
"THAT FRAUD WE DID LAST TIME WAS VERY SUCCESSFUL BUT I HAVE ONE CONCERN THAT YOUR PARTICIPATION WASN'T KNOWING AND WILLFUL ENOUGH WOULD YOU AGREE THAT YOU WERE KNOWING AND WILLFUL? JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE YOU'RE UP FOR THIS."
“In respect of the other 18 suspects, including 16 former soldiers and two alleged Official IRA members, it has been concluded that the available evidence is insufficient to provide a reasonable prospect of conviction.”
This can only be good news for peace in Northern Ireland, coming while there is an increasing possibility of a tougher border threatening the Good Friday Agreement. The Northern Ireland Assembly (Stormont) hasn't even been functioning for a couple of years.
Cyclone Idai has swept through Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe over the past few days, destroying almost everything in its path, causing devastating floods, killing and injuring thousands of people and ruining crops. More than 2.6 million people could be affected across the three countries, and the port city of Beira, which was hit on Friday and is home to 500,000 people, is now an “island in the ocean”, almost completely cut off.
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Mozambique’s president, Filipe Nyusi, announced three days of national mourning late on Tuesday and said his government would declare a national emergency.
Not gonna front: I had no idea any woman even had more than one uterus, much less that it was possible to get pregnant in both of them at once. This is a truly bizarre news story.
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Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
Not gonna front: I had no idea any woman even had more than one uterus, much less that it was possible to get pregnant in both of them at once. This is a truly bizarre news story.
Truly, they have been blessed by Allah.
You can tell it's a blessing because you know everyone who reads this story will be praying it happens to them too.
Julian Assange is in the news. Under arrest and may be extradited. Either Ecuador have violated his rights as a citizen and champion of free speech, or he's a lying scumbag who's now going to get what he deserves, I can't quite make it out.
Israel is close to announcing that Netanhayoo will continue as PM. Such fun.
Al-Bashir has been bashed out of office in Sudan.
The UK has an extension of EU membership until Halloween. Such fun.
But the biggest news is the 900 million people now starting to vote in India. There are so many polling stations the vote is being spread over 6 weeks to allow security to be provided properly. Will Modi (another moderate, undivisive and caring figure) stay in power?
Julian Assange is in the news. Under arrest and may be extradited. Either Ecuador have violated his rights as a citizen and champion of free speech, or he's a lying scumbag who's now going to get what he deserves, I can't quite make it out.
Those two things aren't mutually exclusive. Particularly the part about him being a lying scumbag, which it seems to me pretty clear that he is.
It's pretty clear he's a racist, an anti-Semite and a misogynist and often supports far-right parties and defends Putin from the type of transparency he supposedly values above all, for example. And he lied repeatedly in 2016, both about the contents of the emails he was publishing and about not being on Trump's side, when Twitter DMs that were leaked showed that he was explicitly trying to help Trump.
IMO Assange deserves quite a bit of what's coming to him as a result of his 2016 activities, but it also seems quite possible that the US charges against him are BS and/or would set a dangerous precedent. Particularly given that it's likely that the charges will relate to the Manning leaks regarding the Iraq War. I would rather see him extradited to Sweden first, at any rate.
I'd say that it also could perhaps be an instructive example of the type of loyalty that will be given to ratfuckers who help Trump in criminal or at least criminally questionable/adjacent* ways. You will be thrown under the bus, so maybe, you know, don't help him? Or at least get paid up front, whatever type of payment you're looking for. Don't help Trump hoping for a pardon and/or an ambassadorship - get a pardon THEN help Trump.
*Assange knew the DNC/Podesta emails he was given were the products of criminal hacking. It may not have been criminal for him to publish them if that was the extent of his activities, but "criminally adjacent" seems appropriate.
*Assange knew the emails he was given were the products of criminal hacking. It may not have been criminal for him to publish them if that was the extent of his activities, but "criminally adjacent" seems appropriate.
So every journalist who publishes classified information is now "criminally adjacent", whatever the fuck that means. No problem with that. No way. Hey corporate media clowns, if you cheer this shit on enough, there is hope that it will be applied very selectively.