Charity? No, Fe y Alegría was not charity for me. It was a job, for two years. And I’m proud of what I did there.
No, it’s a way to ridicule the argument of the part or individual you are debating with. In a way, sort of Strawman fallacy argument: A way of cheating in discussions, trying to paint your opponent as something that is not.
Boy, you try to sound “progressive” and pragmatic, but all I hear is condescending and patronizing speech. Prejudice speaking.
You would be surprised of how many persons I knew “from the hood” or barrios that were self-taught bilinguals. (I am also a self-taught, as I didn’t have the money to pay for Berlitz of Loscher, or any of the other expensive language courses that are available here)
Of course, that’s not something you would possibly know, because for all progressive I-know-Latin-America-speech, you don’t know my country.
Yeah, the most biased representatives of the Red Set, or as we call it in Latin America, La izquierda caviar.[quote=“enriquelon, post:63, topic:23630”]
Maruja Tarre is a perfect example of neoliberal thinking, and publishing her biased opinion as if it was a legitimate voice in defense of democracy and decency is of no help for US readers who are under daily exposure of main stream news agencies reporting
[/quote]
I’m sorry, but why Maruja Tarre’s views are not legitimate, or valid? And how much of her writings have you read?
Maruja seems to forget the 40 or 50 years prior to the 15 that brings her complaint. Venezuela has always had high poverty levels, Crime rates and yes tons of social class warfare, the difference may be that before the other side was sheltered in power. I do not approve of what is happening in Vzla right now, but the fiery talk of the actual politcos, reassembles the one Carlos Andres Peres, the man who in 1976 Nationalized the oil industry, used to have against the US. I can go on and on with the conveniently forgotten history of one of the greatest comedy of errors. Maybe Maruja should question what is happening in the hearts of Venezuelans that even for the most mundanes tasks, there is a need to cheat the system. She could not talk of students stealing tests, or regular citizens never paying taxes or trying to speculate with currency because, since I can remember (and I am over 30) Venezuelans never care nor trusted their government. Any Government. They can overthrow the actual government, but when they wake up from their hangover, it will be business as usual, and the next leader will be crucified.
On my view, chavistas are like adecos (followers of the Acción Democrática party) on steroids. And what many of them seem to forget is that Carlos Andrés Pérez was a personal friend of Fidel Castro, and even invited him as a guest of honor to his “coronation” (as the press call it) back in 1989.
Well, there’s me, for some value of “true Marxist”, anyway. I don’t see anything of substance to criticize in your comments about Venezuela, though I believe I’m less well-informed than you are on the subject.
False. I’ve only said that once (if you have any other instance where I’ve suggested that, please quote it)
Let me tell where that come from: As I Venezuelan, I find incredibly insulting and condescending the position of some people in the Left, and some people here in BB that automatically dismisses the tale of any Venezuelan posting or saying something against the flow of “Chavez was the best thing for Venezuela ever”, as “something someone from the elite is posting, because the poor doesn’t speak English for sure”. You didn’t say anything supporting Chávez or Maduro, but you suggested that the only possibility for a person speaking English and posting on Twitter was “being a person of the elite”. That in itself is judgmental, condescending and patronizing. That ruined your post, that got it right regarding the character of some of the elite (not all).
That alone make think twice about what you have to say about Latin America. Because let me tell you: In the time I worked in Fe y Alegría, and those guys have more than 50 years barrio adentro mi hermano, I knew people from working class-blue collar background that lived in barrios and spoke English. Why? Because they bested the system, went around it, and procured themselves that knowledge. They were not elite, and certainly they weren’t middle class.
Now, more on the insulting part: Judging and sentencing, like you did, that a Latin American that speak English and post on a website can only be from the elite, is (for me) a way to make a racial profile. Is a way to say: Well, only the Latin Americans incredibly well educated from a very narrow elite can speak English, the rest absolutely not (because self-taught techniques and other possibilities are off the table, according to this interpretation). That is like it was suggested back in the 1920’s in the U.S., that an African-american person couldn’t possibly be a lawyer, or a doctor. If it was, maybe it was because he was “incredibly well educated”.
So, If I sounded rude or unapologetic, was because your statement was not sympathetic or cute to me. Your statement, for me, was insulting.
(P.S. I am a self taught person, in regards of the English language. I learned on my own, as I didn’t have the money to pay for language courses, which in Venezuela, are really expensive)
Then you should know Guido is from the LGTB community too. Just FYI.
And that point you got it right. The elite here doesn’t know how they look to the people of more developed countries.
“Just to let it clear, I was saying to the people in BB that if your are in that intersection of calling yourself an ‘entrepreneur’ and speak such a perfect English that you are being publish abroad and have twitter and belong to the opposition in Venezuela there is a high probability of having enjoyed social advantages above average”
Sorry to tell you, but yes. You are being insulting. Check what I wrote above.
BTW, if you knew where does Guido come from, you wouldn’t be so quick to judge him and put a label on him .
Again, you are being insulting. And condescending. And patronizing. One of the few positive thing chavistas did was increasing the access to Internet, and Internet resources. So, anyone with real interest and will to learn can learn. And will learn. I saw it myself.
As usual on BoingBoing, the amount of kneejerking by the anti-Chavez lot is astounding. In my experience, such defensiveness is usually associated with a repressed guilt. I’ve witnessed it most often with the pro-Israel crowd. Here we see people who have about the same respect for the poor in their own country as Israeli Jews typically have for the Palestinians. They have a lot in common besides that: both are backed by US imperialism and Chavez has been called an “antisemite” by whatever war criminal is heading the Israeli government.
And before you start insulting me for being a leftist or whatever, let me state my position: I don’t think Chavez was an angel, I’m pretty certain he did some very bad things, it’s just that EVERY SINGLE TIME I took some time to look into his alleged crimes, it turned out to be massive bollocks or completely irrelevant shite.
And sometimes you don’t even need to follow through to realize how nonsensical this anti-Chavez nonsense is like when Xeni, who’s totally not shilling for the CIA, reported on that intolerable, insufferable and massively tragic [censorship … of video fucking games.][1]
You heard that right, kids. Chavez’s Venezuela is worse than Soviet Russia because it censors video fucking games just like such dictatorships as Germany or Australia.
Right, this line of reasoning?: “Chávez loved the poor, so, therefore anyone that disagree with him is a poor-hater person”.
Yes, genius. We will have to re-define the Strawman fallacy concept to adequately describe these one-liners that go beyond the concept of “distorting the other person’s position”.
I will have to make my respective complaint, I still haven’t received my “CIA supporter” check…
I will say that your particular political position is irrelevant. Jerks are jerks, regardless of their political views.
Chavez didn’t commit “crimes”. In his case, were abuses of his office. Abuses of power if you like. But they weren’t crimes.
In the case of Maduro, I would call it crimes. Mostly, because of his irresponsible and sectarian behavior in office has led to 12 people death, that we know off.
Do you have any evidence to support that statement, other than your theories?
That’s really a hysterical claim to make. Just look at this thread. The anti-Chavez crowd is making the following case: 1. The Chavista administration has made many promises of helping the VZ poor using standard far-left policies. 2. The Chavista administration has failed to deliover. 3. Like many previous such movemments, the Chavista administration has responded to its failures by siccing militias against dissidents, censoring the media includign the internet, and flailing.
So far not a single defender of the Chavistas in this thread has said a single thing about these three issues. Every single one of them, you included, goes ad hominem, and accuses the critics of Chavez of being fools, CIA operatives, or bearing contempt against the poor in VZ.
So I’m not going to insult you for being a leftist. But I will insult you for being utterly un-self-conscious, and projecting your own personality flaws on the people you’re attacking. Because you’ve earned a good ad hominem.
That describes just about any left-wing government of late in the developed world.
That sounds bad, very bad indeed; and I say this without sarcasm. Almost but not quite as bad as Chavez’s right wing predecessors. If only I could seriously believe that the anti-Chavez really meant it, freedom and freedom of speech for everyone, then I could be on board. I’m just not buying it. I simply have that irrational hatred of US-backed coups. I know, I know, that’s silly. The CIA is here to help us and love us, and when it supported the 2002 coup, that was for the good of the Venezuelian people, unlike the democratically elected Maduro who’s just there just to be mean and corrupt.
Who’s defending Chavez? Because I’m not. Just like I’m not defending Castro when I’m saying that he was backed into a corner by the US (bay of pigs and the multiple assassination attemps), or like I’m not defending the mullahs I hate when I say they only hold power in Iran because of the coup against Mossadegh and the support for the Shah.
But of course you’re too busy kneejerking (yeah, btw, the Xeni CIA quip was a joke) to understand the point, which is that Chavez critics make such a poor case.
Venezuela was certainly, no paradise before Chavismo. And perhaps that is the reason why people voted for him. Heck, I even voted for his constitution proposal.
But the fact is they haven’t delivered. And the problems we criticized from previous administration had only gotten worse.
Then, why don’t you read what this guy has to say:
Rafael Uzcátegui is a left-wing guy, HR activist, and is here. He has more credibility than the far-left cuckoos like Ciccariello, and he is certainly not friendly with traditional media.
I’m also against coups. US backed coups, and “independent” coups. Coups of all kind. There is no such thing as a “good coup”, as there is also no such thing as “good repression” .
By the way, you did know that Chávez was involved in a coup that ended with more than 100 people killed?
So you don’t dispute that this is an accurate description of events in Venezuela?
Noted.
Now, kindly have a glance at Costa Rica, a country that has established for itself a welfare state despite not having oil revenue. And Uruguay, which is heading in the same direction. Note that in neither country is the government employing informal militias against its critics. Your insistent defense of Chavez and company is typical of the attitude that Spanish speaking countries can’t have nonconfrontational politics and therefore you have to pick between supporting a revolutionary left or a phalangist right. It’s an easy argument to make in the English speaking world, since we live in a culture that was much influenced by the Black Legend.
But again, note Uruguay. Note Costa Rica.
So, you accept that #3 is an accurate description of Venezuela. So what exactly is your beef with the people talking about this? And why are you going straight to ad hominem instead of saying something worth the bandwidth?
