MANK: Make America North Korea

Fascism and communism are both left wing concepts.  They are two sides of the same coin. Socialism!

By Rich Kozlovich

The North Korean tyrants have been in power for three generations, and like all tyrants they want their people to be ignorant and subservient.  And like all tyrants, they’ve had a history of misappropriation of funds, food and a total disregard for human life.

Stalin deliberately starved tens of millions of his citizens to death for resisting collectivization of their farms. And after collectivization occurred, he starved even more due to incompetence and the idiotic Marxist ideology.  All because of one man with total and complete power to decide life and death. Stalin!

China deliberately starved to death over 30 million Chinese because Mao needed capital to buy arms, so he sold the food they needed just to survive.  Mao felt that may just be the beginning, and it was. All due to the actions of one man who held absolute power to decide life and death.   Mao!

Castro overthrew a government where in 1957 before the revolution Cuba had an economy and social structure where:

"the Cuban social structure is a large middle class," the Geneva-based International Labor Organization said in a 1957 report. "Cuban workers are more unionized (proportional to the population) than U.S. workers. The average wage for an 8 hour day in Cuba in 1957 is higher than for workers in Belgium, Denmark, France and Germany. Cuban labor receives 66.6%. In the U.S. the figure is 70%, in Switzerland 64%. 44% of Cubans are covered by Social legislation, a higher percentage than in the U.S."......."Remember, this is before the revolution!"

He died a tyrant!  A murderous monster who left a one time economically sound beautiful country in shambles. All because one man had the power to decide life and death.  Fidel Castro!

What happened when communists took over in Cambodia was a human disaster of inhuman proportions. What's going on in Venezuela is absolutely criminal, and almost as inhuman.   

 

North Korean is no different!  More than 40% of North Koreans are undernourished and make no mistake about this. Often times whether or not they get needed food is based on the intensity of their loyalty to their communist tyrants. 

 

During a period of flooding and famine in the 1990’s up to 2 million people died, ten percent of their population. Moscow and Beijing stopped funding them and they found themselves in very real economic straits, even playing around with the value of their currency, which always has been a disaster for the common people. 

The long term impact for children with improper nutrition is really serious. If during these important development years children are malnourished it will impact them physically and mentally for the rest of their lives.  That will impact their societal structure negatively for decades.  The averge size of North Koreans is noticably smaller than their Southern cousins.  "It seems that this height statistic reveals a tragic fact - that as South Koreans have got richer and taller, North Korean children are being stunted by malnourishment".

Less than 1% have Internet access:

“merely owning a computer requires permission from local government authorities, and all personal computers are registered with the police as if they were shotguns.” 

......“Private ownership of fax machines is banned outright, and sending a single fax requires high-level authorization. Meanwhile, pirated DVDs of South Korean TV dramas are so illegal that North Koreans caught with them in regular police sweeps can be sentenced to years in labor camps.”

And yet:

“the UN Security Council found that North Korean hackers had stolen more than $670 million worth of foreign currency and cryptocurrency, according to Nikkei Asian Review. The hackers' big hauls included $81 million from Bangladesh Bank, $13.5 million from Cosmos Bank in India, and $10 million from the Bank of Chile's ATM network”.

Of course the normal question that needs answering is this: If the North Korean government controls the Internet so strictly, how could that have happened without the government’s approval?

North Korea at night. 

There are 25 million people living in North Korea. Their economy is for the most part non-existent with most making less than $2000 a year. North Korea is an extremely mineral rich nation, but as in all communist systems, because corruption and incompetence, they fail to take advantage of those resources.

Remember how the Obama administration not only failed to exploit American’s oil resources, they actually tried to impede oil exploitation. The Obama people disingenuously point out that oil production rose during his administration, and that’s true. But that was a lie of omission. The reason oil production rose was due to exploitation by capitalists on private property, not government owned or controlled property and areas such as off shore drilling.

The nation of North Korea is a virtual slave camp of abuse and corruption. According to Time,

“Rape, summary executions, slavery and mass imprisonment are among the horrors the North Korean regime routinely inflicts upon its own population to maintain its Stalinist political system, claims a searing new report by the U.N.’s Human Rights Council…………. According to an advanced outline leaked to the Associated Press, the U.N.’s Commission of Inquiry (COI) says Kim Jong Un’s government is involved in “extermination, crimes against humanity against starving populations and a widespread campaign of abductions of individuals in South Korea and Japan.”

And where’s the World Court? Nowhere as far as I can tell, since they’re wasting their time attempting to find Israel guilty of crimes against humanity for having the temerity to defend themselves against terrorist attacks.

But, in spite of all this suffering, Kim Jong Un is obscenely living it up on expensive imported luxury goods, just like his father and grandfather. So, where does all this money come from for such a life style?

Ben Franklins!

According to the Christian Science Monitor:

"The Federal Reserve on Tuesday began circulating a redesign of a US currency note that may be the most counterfeited monetary unit in the world: the $100 bill. Graced with Mr. Franklin’s bemused gaze on one side and Philadelphia’s Independence Hall on the other, the bill is the first new version of the C-note to be distributed by US monetary administrators in a decade" ………."The new design incorporates security features that make it easier to authenticate, but harder to replicate………”

And why? The article goes on saying:

"North Korean forging prowess is so advanced that US law enforcement officials have dubbed the fake, “nearly perfect” $100 bills “supernotes.” According to a 2009 Congressional Research Service report, at least $45 million in supernotes of North Korean origin have been detected in circulation, and Pyongyang may earn between $15 million and $25 million a year from counterfeiting. North Korean diplomats often play roles in getting fake bills into circulation, lugging suitcases packed with bad money to their home embassies, then spending the bills in small, innocuous amounts in stores, casinos, restaurants, or elsewhere……….According to the Korean newspaper The Chosun Ilbo, one North Korean embassy in Eastern Europe generated US$30 million by exchanging counterfeit notes a year."

Apparently money isn't all they counterfeit:

“North Korea is unique in that it is the only country in the world to manufacture cigarettes, drugs like Viagra, hard currency; this is an essential instrument of regime preservation……..The regime relies on criminal activities, because it has no other means for generating revenue”.

Socialist all claim they care about people offering all sorts of remedies to fix things that aren’t broken.  They promise utopia and consistently fail.  What they're successful at delivering is corruption, incompetence, tyranny, misery, suffering and early death. It's dystopia, the opposite of utopia.  They're not offering equal opportunities, they're offering equal outcomes. Everyone except the elite suffer equally. 

All this because of one man who has the power to decide life and death.  Kim Jong Un! 

The left hates MAGA, Make America Great Again, hats symbolizing conservative thinking and goals.  But what kind of hat could the left adopt that would symbolized who and what they are?  How's this:

• MANK - Make America North Korea
• MAV, Make America Venezuela
• MAC, Make America Cuba. 

Take your pick, just like these leftist candidates, they're pretty much interchangeable, because that's what all these socialists running for President of the United States desire.  Absolute power to decide life and death.  As David Horowitz says, "

"Inside every liberal is a totalitarian screaming to get out.  The Progressive believes in precisely two things: his own magnificence and the constructive power of brute force. In combination, they lead him naturally from the role of pestiferous busybody to brutal dictator." 

Perhaps you don't think Bernie Sanders believes that?  Well, you should, since one his own staff has stated that's what they wish to impose on any who oppose them.  In effect letting Americans know either do what we want, or we'll beat you, kill you, burn your property and run riot over society.  Does that sound like normal American politics, or leftist fascism? 

Bernie, has yet to act on it or fire the staff member who spouted his criminal intent for violence against Americans!  Why?  It appears his staff is filled with people completely in harmony with the violence and brutality described in the video.  This is the typical kind of projection constantly practiced by the left; fascists calling normal people fascists, and accusing them of what they are doing themselves. 

Nor, as far as I can tell, has any of his fellow Democrat candidates disavowed these comments or condemned the staffer who uttered them.  Are their staffs infested with the same kind of lunatics also? 

Finally, we need to get this right once and for all.  Fascism is a form of socialism.  Fascism is the right wing of socialism as communism is the left wing of socialism, two sides of the same coin.  But they're both left wing creations.  They are not conservatives.  They are not the right wing of Democracy in America.  That belongs to conservatives who believe in the rule of law, truth, justice and the American way.  Please view, The Fascist Roots Behind Today's Justification of Political Violence by Doug Petrikat, which appeared yesterday at American Thinker.

Democrats running for President of the United States, along with their allies in the media and universities that promote leftism, are the true fascists of American politics.  And in spite of all the atrocities, disasters, and abject failures of socialism, 40 % of American embrace some form of socialism. 

There are even people in Russia who declare that Stalin really didn't kill all those people. I guess Hitler didn't kill all those Jews either.  In so many socialist tyrannies that seems to be a recurring theme. So many bodies turning up in mass graves no one killed.

H.L. Mencken was right when he said: “No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”

Bombshell Vid Shows Bernie Sanders Staffer Advocating for Riots, Gulags, Shootings

By Project Veritas —— Bio and Archives--January 14, 2020

(Editor's Note:Although the language is bleeped, in this video, it's still intense. RK)

The full video of the Bernie Sanders campaign staffer has dropped and it’s worse than imagined. Not only does Kyle Jurek, who has been paid $11,000 so far by the campaign, advocate for putting Americans in gulags, but he also talks about plans to shoot Americans who don’t fight for the “revolution.”

Feel the Bern: Venezuela’s currency so worthless it’s mostly being used for making crafts

By Lucia I. Suarez Sang | Fox News

Once one of the more prosperous countries in Latin America – has been driven into such economic and political turmoil that its currency is no longer of any use.

However, that has not stopped Venezuelan bolivares from becoming a commodity elsewhere.

Across the border in Colombia, Hector Cordero uses the currency to make wallets and purses, which he sells to tourists in Colombia.

“These bolivares soberanos notes are worth nothing,” Cordero, who is from Caracas, told Al Jazeera. “These notes I use are not circulating any more since last year.”....... To Read More....

Feel the Bern? Venezuela is a Socialist Hell.

By Rich Kozlovich

On December 23, 2019 Monica Showalter posted the article, Animated graphic shows Venezuela's year-by-year descent to rock bottom, with this powerful race to the bottom short graphic.  This moves quickly so remember the blue line represents Venezuela.  

Venezuela is a socialist induced hell filled with squalor, suffering, starvation, disease, unfettered crime, tyranny and early death.  Showalter goes on to quote Issues & Insight's John Merline saying:

Of course, Venezuela is just the latest example of socialism’s failure. Despite the lure of "fairness" and "economic security" and "taking on the rich" — sound familiar? — every socialist country ends up in the same desperate ditch.  

Venezuela is such a painfully obvious example of the disgusting imperfection socialists impose on humanity.  All the while unendingly demanding perfection from capitalists.

Venezuela is a "hell hole", one they brought on themselves. The country has tuned into a huge criminal enterprise, with the government as the primary criminal. How to fix it? If they overthrew this corrupt band of thieves today, it would take decades and hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars to bring their economy back, feed their population, repair their infrastructure, and just reasonably restore the health care system. But it will take decades to overcome the impact starvation will have had on the children.

These are their formative years physically and mentally, and impairment of their development caused by starvation is incalculable. And the impact of those impairments will last for the rest of their lives. That will impact the nation's efforts to heal itself, if they ever get the chance.

(Editor's Note: Please review my Venezuela files.RK)

Can Bernie explain that? This is what he would love it impose on America, along with the rest of the leftist lunatics running for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.

Biden want to put policies into place that will destroy hundreds of thousand of jobs imposing the New Green Deal on America.

Bernie wants to create ex post facto laws in order to "criminally prosecute the fossil fuel executives who destroyed the planet."

What's an ex post facto law?

It's a law that criminalizes behavior before that behavior became illegal.  To do so would directly violate the Constitution, which contains "two clauses in the constitution prohibit ex post facto. Article 1 Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution states: 'No Bill of Attainder or Ex Post Facto Law shall be passed,' which follows the rational thinking that if there's no law, there's no crime.

To change that is to give carte blanche to radicals to put anyone in jail for anything, whenever it pleases them. It's really called tyranny, and one of the factors triggering the American Revolution.

Bernie and his crowd of would be tyrants want to directly violate the Constitution which prevent ex post facto laws.

 Make no mistake about this:  The only time socialists love the Constitution is when they can use it against conservatives.  The rest of the time they hate it and want to destroy it by using our own values against us. Horowitz is completely right when he says:

Inside every liberal is a totalitarian screaming to get out.

 By the way, this is so profound you would think it would be published everywhere.  Try to find that article by Googling it. If I hadn't already seen it and knew where to look it wouldn't have been able to find it as it never appeared on any of the three search engines I use.

Then there's Elizabeth Warren who believes trillions of dollars in tax hikes is good for America.  Not to mention her fifty trillion plus cost for universal health care.  I would like for her to name one country in the history of the world where such an action proved economically positive.

(Editor's Note: You may wish to view my files on Taxes, and Warren figures prominently in those files. RK)

In Dan Mitchell's article, The Real Motive for Class-Warfare Taxation he states:

In addition to being a contest over expanding the burden of government spending, the Democratic primary also is a contest to see who wants the biggest tax increases. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have made class-warfare taxation an integral part of their campaigns, but even some of the supposedly reasonable Democrats are pushing big increases in tax rates.

Taxes are about control, not about economic growth or freedom.  We really do need to get that, and these are the top three loons running for the Democrat nomination for President of the United States. The rest are even loonier.

So what's their goal? Make America Venezuela!

Maybe they should get some ball caps with MAV on them for their campaigns. MAGA worked for Trump, maybe MAV will work for the Democrats?

Nah, I wouldn't make book on that.

Feel the Bern: The Young, the Restless and Bernie

Bill Murchison Oct 22, 2019

A New York Times opinion column acquaints humanity with the injustice of forbidding the vote to 16- and 17-year-olds -- who, nevertheless, would gain the franchise once a budding movement to that end came to fruition and then would impose the superior wisdom of the young by handing the presidency, so we are entitled to infer, to Sen. Bernie Sanders.

The well-ripened alliance between various young folks and snowy-haired Sanders -- a 78-year-old heart attack victim going on age 5, to judge by his simplistic politics -- is hard to sort out. The truth seems to be that old-time political alignments -- e.g., Democratic populists against Republican country club types -- no longer hold. Nobody seems happy, not even the young, once famous for generally ignoring politics in behalf of more sensible activities, such as homecomings and the new car styles............To Read More.....

Feel the Bern: Another North Korean Nightmare.

By Rich Kozlovich

On July 18, 2019 Josh Smith posted an article with Reuters entitled, Malnutrition, disease rising in North Korea: aid organization, saying:

"Rates of malnutrition and disease are increasing in North Korea as it faces a harvest that is half of what was expected, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said on Thursday."

As a result of “erratic weather with drought and floods, and a lack of access to resources could lead to a food crisis in a country”.

Let's take a moment and think about this.  If weather is the reason for their crop failures, why isn't South Korea facing the same problem?

Why is there a lack of access to resources? Well, I guess that makes it our fault....right?  Because N. Korea is “under strict international sanctions over leader Kim Jong Un’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.”

It isn’t because of corruption of the N. Korean government. It isn’t because of the incompetence, greed and stupidity of those in power. It isn’t due to an economic system that has never failed to deliver anything except suffering, misery, disease, starvation and early death.  It isn't because they keep threatening the world with missiles and nuclear weapons.  By implication - it’s our fault because the sanctions caused “widening trade deficits, foreign currency shortages and a deepening cash crunch”.

Well, isn’t that what sanctions are supposed to do?

Unfortunately, “rates of malnutrition and water borne diseases like diarrhea and colitis are on the rise”. Furthermore, “North Korea is expected to exhaust its crop reserves earlier than usual this year”.

This isn't anything new for North Koreans. "In the 1990s, a nationwide famine killed as many as one million people.” In 2014 this was a nation of 25 million people, and in 1990 the population may have initially been larger since in the mid nineties North Korean birth rate dropped about 50%.  Based on the 25 million number, the million people who starved to death amounts to about 4% of N. Korea's population.  To get the full impact of that we have to realize if that happened in America that would amount to 12,400,000 people starving to death.  A national human disaster by any calculation. 

To expand on this please note that almost 5% of the North Korean population is serving in the military.  That's close to 1.3 million people in a nation of 25 million people!  How can any nation justify that kind of military spending when the people of the nation are starving? 

The United States has a population of over 325 million people and only has "1.3 million men and women on active duty," and "another 1.1 million serve in the National Guard and Reserve forces." That comes to just a little over 2.4 million people.  Approximately .75%.  If you add in civilian employees, which I doubt North Korean figures do, that's another 669,281 coming to just under 1%.  And America has been actively involved in military action for decades. 

What war is Kim fighting?  Well, actually the Korean War.  It never ended with a treaty, just an armistice.  So Kim keeps telling his people they have to suffer in order to keep the United States and South Korea from conquering them.  Wouldn't that be terrible with starvation and oppression ending.  Of course the people are left in the dark about that by a lunatic who not only kills his own people, he kills his own family. 

The world is now producing food in such quantities there's absolutely no reason why any nation should have starvation.  How could any national leader allow that to happen when the world's food supply is so amazingly abundant unless he's insane. 

What has Kim Jong Un and his cutthroats done to keep this from happening again?   He and his gang continue “to import millions of dollars worth of luxury goods, including at least two armored limousines valued at $500,000 each”.  All for their own benefit without one iota of concern about the poor suffering North Korean people.

It’s reported:

“South Korea will donate $4.5 million to the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP), and announced it was also providing 50,000 tonnes of rice for delivery to its northern neighbor. South Korea also recently donated $3.5 million to the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) for humanitarian projects in North Korea.”

First of all, I have to wonder how much of that will really get to the people.  N. Korea has in the past imposed a "military first" policy for food and allowed the civilian population to starve.  A population divided into three castes based on loyalty to the regime.  About 25% are in the third caste, which are considered a threat to the regime, and make no mistake about it, they starve.  Secondly, what did South Korea get in return for their generosity and humanity? Kim just recently announced his bankrupt starving country might start testing missiles again.

He can’t find the money to feed his people but he can find the money for luxuries and missile testing?

So he threatens to double down on the activity that caused sanctions and the resulting suffering in the first place.  Why?  I have to believe this is an attempt to intimidate the west into giving him money and food for his starving people. Which will free up money - money he doesn't really have - to promote insanity.  Why insanity?  Because if he ever used any of those missiles with a nuclear device, he and his nation would cease to exist in 24 hours. 

But what about the starving people of his nation? 

He clearly doesn't care about them.  If you're a moral person you have to feel for the pain, suffering and the terrible impact this will have on the people of this nation.  Especially the children. Even if they survive, malnutrition during those development years impacts them negatively for the rest of their lives.

What should be done? 

One thing has been made clear to me over the years is governments like N. Korea, with the Kims, Venezuela with Muduro, Zimbabwe with Mugabe for decades, and others, devastate their citizens to the point it seems impossible for them to rid themselves of these monsters.  And in the cases where outside forces cleared them out and attempted to bring Democratic principles into play, they vote in the same kind of people that devasted them, which we've seen in Muslim controlled nations. 

If we provide medical care and food for these people it merely helps keep the monsters running these countries in power, prolonging the misery and agony they impose.   If we refuse to aid them innocent people suffer and die now.  Either way, these nations represent no threat to the rest of the world because of the greed, corruption and mismanagement of their governments.  North Korea is the exception.  They represent a danger to their neighbors and even the United States because of their missile and nuclear programs, which would have never come into being except for Jimmy Carter and the Clintons.

That, in my opinion, leaves only the military, and not the senior military personnel.  The younger members at the next level down is where any overthrow would have to come from. Is that possible?  No one has any idea, and no one has connections in North Korea to tell anyone, at least as far as has been published, but who knows, except there's a possibility either China or Russia could have access to personnel in N. Korea who they would support in secret.  But they won't!

What would I do? 

Let it all play out no matter how miserable it would make me feel. Stand firm and expand the sanctions.  Prevent their ability to import "luxuries", including food.  Let the leadership survive on what the nation produces and hope someone has what it takes to overthrown the Kim dynasty.  But will they be any better? 

Sometimes you don't have the privilege of being able to pick between a good choice and a bad choice.  Sometimes you're only left with the best bad choice. 

If doubt what I've said please feel free to peruse my N. Korea files, and you may find my article, N. Korean Crisis: Will This Lead to WWIII? profound and provocative. 

Venezuela and the Socialism Slide

June 9, 2019 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty
 

How do we measure the cost of Venezuelan socialism?

• Is it people eating household pets?
• Is it people dying of malnourishment?
• Is it women selling their bodies?

By the way, left-wing friends have nit-picked by arguing that some of these photos don’t depict actual socialism.

I tell them that they’re being too literal. That’s not how humor works.

Moreover, if they want to have a debate on the real-world consequences of socialism, I’m happy to do that.

I’m not even sure this next item, from libertarian Reddit, makes sense. But I confess I laughed when I first saw it.

Maybe it’s just because both only math-challenged people are drawn to Bernienomics and this “special.”

This next cartoon, also from libertarian Reddit, is self-explanatory.

Very similar to the last cartoon in this collection.

Let’s shift from images to an article. I’m not a conspiracy-minded guy, but I’ve sometimes wondered whether all the feature articles in the establishment press about ant colonies and bee hives is a subliminal effort to promote socialism. With that in mind, this satire from Babylon Bee is spot on.

It was a socialist paradise. Everyone working together in harmony and equally sharing in the labor. But then disaster struck. Disaster in the form of seven-year-old Timmy Gunderson. …he shook his older sister’s ant farm as if trying to reset an Etch A Sketch. Until then, the ant farm had been a model of true socialism. No markets. No capitalists growing rich off the labor of others. Just everyone sharing in the noble work of digging tunnels and harvesting the seeds and sugar water provided daily by eleven-year-old Molly Gunderson. …“The right might seize on the collapse of yet another socialist society,” said professor Clinton Morris. “But it’s important to note that what happened was not a failure of socialism. What caused its failure were outside forces, namely little Timmy.” …measures have been taken to prevent the same disaster from happening again, namely placing the ant farm high up on a bookshelf. Perhaps this time socialism’s promise of a perfect society will be fulfilled.

But maybe socialist society won’t be so perfect for Fido and Rover.

I’ll close with another item that showed up in my inbox.

Given what’s happening in Venezuela, we probably shouldn’t laugh.
P.S. To make my life simpler (adding a long collection of hyperlinks is a pain in the butt), I’ve created a special page for all of my socialism and communism humor.

 

Actually, it’s all of the above.

And there’s plenty of additional evidence. All of which shows that more socialism results in more misery.
Let’s review some examples.
Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world. But with government running the industry, producing petroleum products has been a challenge. To put it mildly.

Venezuela — home to the world’s largest oil reserves — has started introducing in some areas to tackle extreme fuel shortages. …for ordinary Venezuelans, it is a cruel joke without a punchline — a driver recently died of a heart attack after waiting in line for days to fill his tank. …Lopez had been waiting in line to fill her tank for six hours in Lara’s capital Barquisimeto, but had to leave without getting any fuel because she had to go search for medicine for her ailing brother, who suffers from meningitis. “It’s a joke!” she fumed again as she left the gas station empty-handed, despite the fact that between state-regulated gas prices, hyper-inflation and black-market dollar exchange rates, a dollar could technically buy almost 600 million liters of fuel. …According to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Venezuela’s oil output has dropped from 3.2 million barrels per day a decade ago to 1.03 million barrels in April this year. Other estimates put that output as low as 768,000 barrels per day.

Here’s another sign of Venezuela’s descent into third-world status.

…the Center for Malaria Studies in Caracas..is not immune to Venezuela’s economic crisis and is struggling to treat patients. This is a country that lacks 85 percent of the medicines it needs, according to the pharmaceuticals industry. …Scientists who would later work for this clinic contributed in 1961 to helping Venezuela become the first country to eradicate malaria. However, there was a resurgence seven years ago, worsening to become an epidemic in 2016, according to the Red de Epidemiologia NGO. Today the clinic is in a sorry state: yellowed microscopes, a dishwasher stained by purple chemicals, refrigerators corroded by rust. …According to the World Health Organization, Venezuela registered more than 400,000 malaria cases in 2017, making it one of the hardest-hit countries in the Americas. Noya, though, believes the true extent of the epidemic is “close to two million” people affected.

I have no idea if Juan Guaido, the putative leader of the opposition, has what it takes to lead Venezuela out of the dark ages (maybe he’s another Macri rather than a Thatcher). But he’s definitely getting some first-hand experience with socialism.

On Thursday, Juan Guaido woke up and doused himself with a bucket of water. It was his shower. Like millions of Venezuelans, the man who dozens of countries recognize as the legitimate leader of his broken country can’t rely on the taps to run. …“It’s going to get worse” before things turn, he warned.

Reuters reports on how parts of Venezuela are descending into autarky and barter.

At the once-busy beach resort of Patanemo, tourism has evaporated over the last two years as Venezuela’s economic crisis has deepened and deteriorating cellphone service left visitors too afraid of robbery to brave the isolated roads. …These days, its Caribbean shoreline flanked by forested hills receives a different type of visitor: people who walk 10 minutes from a nearby town carrying rice, plantains or bananas in hopes of exchanging them for the fishermen’s latest catch. With bank notes made useless by hyperinflation, and no easy access to the debit card terminals widely used to conduct transactions in urban areas, residents of Patanemo rely mainly on barter. It is just one of a growing number of rural towns slipping into isolation as Venezuela’s economy implodes amid a long-running political crisis. …In the mountains of the central state of Lara, residents of the town of Guarico this year found a different way of paying bills – coffee beans. Residents of the coffee-growing region now exchange roasted beans for anything from haircuts to spare parts for agricultural machinery.

One can only wonder, by the way, why the collapse of trade isn’t creating more jobs and prosperity. Could it be that Trump is wrong on the issue?

But I’m digressing. Let’s get back to our main topic.

What can you say about a country that’s so poor that even criminals are suffering?

Venezuela’s crippling economic spiral is having a negative impact on an unlikely group in society: criminals, who are struggling to afford bullets, and unable to find things to steal as the country’s wealth declines rapidly. …While bullets are widely available on the black market, many muggers cannot afford the $1 price tag anymore, a criminal known as “Dog” told the news organization. …Another gangster, “El Negrito,” who leads a gang called Crazy Boys, has found it increasingly hard to support his wife and daughter with assaults. Firing a bullet is a luxury now, he said. …homicide rate…went down by nearly 10% last year— though Venezuela remains one of the most violent countries in the world. The non-profit, which aggregates the data from morgues and media reports, partly attributes this decrease to the reduction in muggings — because there is nothing to steal. …Shoemaker Yordin Ruiz told The Washington Post: “If they steal your wallet, there’s nothing in it.”

What a perfect symbol of socialism! People are so poor that there’s nothing left to steal.

I want to conclude by emphasizing a point that I’ve made before about greater levels of socialism being associated with greater levels of misery.

As you can see from this chart (based on EFW data), Hong Kong has the most freedom, though it isn’t perfect.

Then you have nations such as the United States and Denmark, that have some statist characteristics but are mostly market oriented. Followed by France, which has a lot more socialist characteristics, and then Greece, which presumably can be described as a socialist nation.

But Venezuela is an entirely different category. It’s in the realm of near-absolute statism.

P.S. Cuba and North Korea presumably rank below Venezuela, but they’re not part of the EFW rankings because of inadequate and/or untrustworthy data.

P.P.S. It’s hard to believe, given the pervasive statism that now exists, but Venezuela in 1970 was ranked in the top 10 for economic liberty.

Feel the Bern: Bernietopia

When a noun must disguise itself behind an adjective, beware.

By Daniel Flynn June 14, 2019

“We must recognize that in the 21st century, in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, economic rights are human rights,” Bernie Sanders announced at a speech this week. “That is what I mean by democratic socialism.”

The word hiding behind that adjective hides in plain sight at the site of all of the past century’s great atrocities. Whether one thinks of National Socialism or Soviet Socialism, that second word conjures up a horrible track record exclusive of such concepts as compassion, justice, and love — the very words Senator Sanders employed to describe socialism. Sanders’s use of the modifier “democratic” might suggest a kinder, gentler socialism if Democratic Kampuchea and the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea did not already try this approach.

Despite these historical cautionary tales, and the senator’s admission that the recalcitrant bastion of capitalism somehow remains “the wealthiest country in the history of the world,” a Harris poll indicates that 40 percent of Americans would rather live in a socialist country than a capitalist one. The results closely mirror a recent Gallup poll in which 43 percent of respondents affirmed socialism as “good thing” for the United States.

Coincidentally, about as many Americans hold no memory of the Berlin Wall. Many of them, uncoincidentally, support Sanders, whose numbers, although down in recent polls, slide because others coopt, not because they reject, his message. It’s not former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, booed for telling California Democrats that “socialism is not the answer,” seeing his numbers climb. It’s Elizabeth Warren, running as Bernie without the baggage — or at least his baggage..........To Read More....

Feel the Bern: Cuba launches widespread rationing in face of crisis

HAVANA — The Cuban government announced Friday that it is launching widespread rationing of chicken, eggs, rice, beans, soap and other basic products in the face of a grave economic crisis.
Commerce Minister Betsy Díaz Velázquez told the state-run Cuban News Agency that various forms of rationing would be employed in order to deal with shortages of staple foods.

She blamed the hardening of the U.S. trade embargo by the Trump administration. Economists give equal or greater blame to a plunge in aid from Venezuela, where the collapse of the state-run oil company has led to a nearly two-thirds cut in shipments of subsidized fuel that Cuba used for power and to earn hard currency on the open market.

Cuba imports roughly two thirds of its food at an annual cost of more than $2 billion and brief shortages of individual products have been common for years. In recent months, a growing number of products have started to go missing for days or weeks at a time, and long lines have sprung up within minutes of the appearance of scarce products like chicken or flour. Many shoppers find themselves still standing in line when the products run out, a problem the government has been blaming on "hoarders."..........To Read More....

My Take - It's always someone else's fault when socialists fail.  And it's always the people who suffer, not the socialists running everything into the ground. 

Feel the Bern: Bernie's Okay With Criminals Voting, Even If That Person Is The Boston Marathon Bomber

Apr 22, 2019 Beth Baumann

Earlier this month, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said he believes everyone should be allowed to vote, including those who are behind bars. Democrats have pushed the issue of criminals having their rights reinstated after a person serves their time but Sanders' proposal takes things a step further. He was asked about his stance during his hour-long town hall on CNN.

Sanders position is simple: he believes everyone should be allowed to vote, regardless of whether or not he or she has committed a crime.

"Do you believe that people with felony records should be allowed to vote while in prison? Does this mean you would support enfranchising people, like the Boston Marathon Bomber, a convicted terrorist and murderer?" the student asked. "Do you think those convicted of sexual assault should have the opportunity to vote for politicians who could have a direct impact on women's rights?".........To Read More.....

Feel the Bern: Raise Taxes on Everyone Richer Than Me

"Nobody should earn more than a million dollars," Bernie Sanders (1974).

April 18, 2019 Daniel Greenfield 

"Nobody should earn more than a million dollars," Bernie Sanders declared in 1974.

During his original Senate run, the socialist candidate claimed that “concentrations of wealth” were the greatest threat to America and could be ended with a 100% tax on wealth over $1 million a year.

In 2016, Bernie Sanders made over $1 million. He didn’t self-impose a 100% tax on his own wealth.

That same year he gave less than 1% of his income to charity and bought a third home. As a young man, Bernie had claimed that a million was more money than anyone could spend in a lifetime. Now that he had a million, he discovered just how many things he could enjoy spending all that filthy lucre on.

In the early days of his campaign, Bernie’s fans touted him as the sort of ordinary guy who flies coach and gets scrunched in there with the rest of us. Then the money began pouring in and Bernie chartered a Delta 767 and took a jaunt to the Vatican to meet Pope Francis with the mostly empty plane serving a menu of lobster sliders, crab salad, red lentil soup, herb crusted lamb loin, chocolate ganache, fine cheeses and white wine. As the old Soviet anecdote went, Bernie was finally living under communism...........To Read More.....

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Feel the Bern: There’s no Fool like an old Fool, right Bernie!

Apr 16, 2019 Posted by D.W. Wilber, Counterterrorism Analyst, Former CIA

Once upon a time in the Land of ‘Murica’ lived a sad and pathetic figure, the Royal Fool named Bernie, a Court Jester for the ruling body of the land. As the Royal Fool, Bernie’s sole purpose was to bring comic relief to everyone through his hilarious antics, and the many, many crazy things that he said. But Bernie the Fool had ambitions beyond just being a Court Jester and making a fool of himself.

 

Bernie the Fool decided one day that he wanted to rule the Land of ‘Murica’ so he began to travel outside the Royal Court to give speeches about his vision for the future. A vision that was based mostly on giving free stuff to the misfits and freeloaders like him by taking it away from the ones who had worked hard to achieve success.

Bernie the Fool did have a loyal following among some of the people of the Land of ‘Murica’. His followers were made up mostly of people like himself, other misfits and freeloaders who were jealous of the others in the land who had worked hard and achieved more than them.

Bernie called his vision ‘Socialism’, a system of government that had never worked anywhere that it had ever been tried before. It was the type of governing system that only a genuine fool would support for the Land of ‘Murica’, which had throughout its history had been governed by a system called ‘Capitalism’. A system that rewarded hard work and initiative, and which resulted in personal success and wealth to those willing to put forth the effort...........To Read More.....

                               

Feel the Bern: Socialism Humor, the Bernie Sanders Edition

March 23, 2019 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

 

I’m not a fan of Crazy Bernie, to put it mildly.

His policies would turn us into serfs and condemn people to poverty and deprivation.

But the silver lining of that dark cloud is that he is the unwitting source of some great humor. And that’s our topic today.

We’ll start with a brutal tweet. I don’t know @djPaulMarco, but – as the youngsters say – he dunked on the Vermont Senator.

Next we have some politically oriented humor.

I like to think this isn’t what really motivates Bernie’s young supporters, but you have to wonder what’s rattling around in their heads.  (My take - How, and why, does anyone let their hair turn into a rat's nest? Aren't you glad she votes? RK)

Sticking with the political theme, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez (who also is a great target for mockery) technically will still be too young to be on the ticket in 2020, but this bit of humor aptly describes the direction America will be heading if the so-called Green New Deal gets imposed on the country.

And since Senator Sanders wants government-coerced equality, I’m sure he’ll support this idea.
Especially since the DNC did this to him back in 2016.

The same principle apparently applies to yard signs as well.

Now let’s shift to public policy, though this next image also illustrates the socialist approach to vote buying.

In any event, it captures the essence of socialist economics.

A good theory, until there’s nobody left to do the buying.

Speaking of drinks, here’s a Bernie special offer.

I’m also a huge fan of this clever satire. Very appropriate to close with this item given what I wrote last weekend.



For other examples of Bernie humor, you can click here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Omar, Bernie, and Ocasio-Cortez decried for their fusty, outdated ideas on Venezuela — from the left

March 22, 2019 By Monica Showalter

Yesterday's detention of Roberto Marrero, Venezuelan president Juan Guaidó's chief of staff, by the Nicolás Maduro dictatorship, drew bipartisan condemnation from both Republicans and Democrats.
Here's Nancy Pelosi on Twitter.  We condemn the Maduro regime’s middle of the night raid and kidnapping of Roberto Marrero, the Chief of Staff to Venezuela’s interim President Juan Guaidó. We call on Maduro to release Marrero immediately and allow him safe return to his family............

Florida Reps. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Donna Shalala, and New Jersey's Sen. Bob Menendez, all tweeted similarly.  We all agree that Maduro is despicable. USA Today called the entire stunt a kidnapping.  Even the press is onboard..........Then there are the outliers...the socialists who are so out of it that they're seeing pushback from the leftist press on something that's going to be painful for them when they hear about it..................Read more

Feel the Bern: Bernie Sanders would spell disaster for America and Democrats, too

By By Chris Talgo Mar 14, 2019

CHICAGO Although the field of 2020 Democratic presidential candidates seems to grow daily, one name stands out at this early juncture: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).  Bernie's back on the campaign trail and drumming up the liberal base for a run atop the 2020 Democratic Party ticket. And who knows, with Joe Biden still undecided, Bernie sure seems like a solid front-runner.

Despite the fact that Sanders is the leading declared candidate in most polls he also raised more than $10 million in the first week after his announcement Bernie would be a disastrous Democratic presidential nominee and possibly the best thing for President Donald Trump's re-election bid.  Sanders is a self-avowed "democratic socialist." He honeymooned in the Soviet Union and has a long track record of praising socialist and communist regimes not exactly something that most American voters would agree with..........To Read More.....

Feel the Bern: The God that Failed...Over and Over Again

March 15, 2019 By Lee Edwards

Why do so many of our university professors argue that socialism is a better way to peace and prosperity than capitalism? Because it is, to them, an article of faith. To admit that socialism has failed -- repeatedly, consistently and abysmally -- for over a century would be, for them, to deny their god.

Theirs are the eyes of faith that cannot see.

Venezuela, once one of the wealthiest countries in Latin American, is now on the brink of economic collapse and political anarchy after two decades of Chavez/Maduro socialism.

Cuba has languished under the Communist Party of Fidel and Raul Castro, who promised free and open elections when they came to power. Sixty years later, Cubans are still waiting.

The Soviets tried for 74 years to build a socialist workers’ paradise, killing millions in the process. Their empire wound up on the ash heap of history, so broke that President Mikhail Gorbachev had to borrow a pen to sign the document dissolving the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics............To Read More......

Feel the Bern: Evil, Stupid or Insane?

By Rich Kozlovich

In 2011 I published a commentary by James Dilingpole entitled, The science is settled: US liberals really are the dumbest creatures on the planet.  It's still is as meaningful now as it was then.  But it's bigger than just a lack of intelligence.  The problem is deeper and far more disturbing than mere stupidity.  Here are some thoughts based on that article.

Like Dilingpole, I often wonder why lefties, liberals, progressives, Democrats, RINO's and the media(oops, I'm repeating myself) are so often so utterly wrong on so many issues. Then he explains it: It's because their stupid!

Not misguided - stupid! And the reason they're stupid is because they care little for facts, consistency of thought and whether or not what they believe and promote has any relationship with what is going on in reality. As a result they dump on society.

While promising utopia, claiming everything should be free and the rich should pay more taxes, they invariable deliver dystopia: misery, suffering, disease, squalor and early death. They've destroyed economies, wrecked havoc in nations all over the world and ruined hundreds of millions of lives in the 20th century, and are continuing their misanthropic march through history even now.

If you tell me the entire history of an issue, I will give you the answer. We have gone through all of this before. From the economic boondoggles of the FDR administration to the complete and utter incompetence of the Carter administration.  Green energy foolishness is another one of his many failures, which includes the creation of the Energy Department in 1977. But at least these guys could claim some degree of ignorance because these ideas hadn't really been tried before.  

There's no excuse for that now.  These government bureaucrats have:

• Never in their lives had real jobs.
• Never ran successful businesses.
• Never had to forego paychecks to make sure their employees and bills were paid.
• Never put their house on the line to start or keep a business running.
• Never worked 16 hour days on a regular basis.

 Why, all of a sudden, would we expect these people to be able to tell those who have done all of that to make their businesses successful, what they should be doing to be more successful?

• These are people who have embraced economic philosophies that have failed consistently worldwide.   
• These people hate capitalism.

Why would be think they could run an entire economic system successfully?  The Bernie Brigade has never done it in the past, and they want to do the same things now that failed in the past, so why would any sane person believe following all those failed policies and schemes will turn out differently now?

We need to get this. You can't fix stupid, and that's what someone has to be when they ignore the obvious facts of history in order to push an agenda that has failed over and over again.

That's not only stupid, it's called a definition for insanity.

At the beginning of the 20th century many thought socialism might be the future. But time is the great leveler of truth, and now we absolutely know better!  Time and Truth are on the same side.  There's no excuse for continuing to promote socialism for any society because we now know it will never work, and it destroys lives.

That's history, and that history is incontestable.  Again, Time and Truth are on the same side.

To continue to push such an agenda in face of all that history makes them not only stupid and insane, it makes them evil, because they've embraced what we now know is utterly evil in the end. Socialism!

• Who but an evil person would deny aid to starving people as has Maduro in Venezuela? 
• Who but an evil person could impose the mass starvation or the murder of tens of millions of people in Cuba, Cambodia, Russia and China as did Castro, Pol Pot, Stalin and Mao? 
• Who but an evil person could fail to condemn them as Bernie Sanders and many others in the Congress have failed to do?
  

Evil is as evil does, and those who support or defend those evil persons share in the guilt of their evil deeds.  

So what is it?  Are they evil?  Are they stupid.  Or are they insane? 

Yes!

Can you Feel the Bern?

Feel the Bern: Cartoon of the Day

Sanders gets testy on ‘The View’ — demands to talk about ‘climate change’ when confronted about his behavior

“Climate change” is the new strategy for Democrats to dodge serious issues.

March 1st, 2019 By Martin Walsh

Sen. Bernie Sanders made an appearance Friday on ABC’s “The View” to discuss his 2020 presidential campaign and the policies he will support.  But one of the most notable exchanges came when co-host Meghan McCain asked the Vermont socialist about reports that he was “unbelievably abusive” to his own staff.   Sanders, who was visibly rattled by the question, dodged and argued that we should be talking about climate change.  “Des Moines Register asked you questions about it as well,” McCain said...........To Read More.....

Feel the Bern: Venezuela’s Slow Bern

The demise of the Maduro regime looks like prolonged agony for the American Left.

by Scott McKay February 28, 2019

The mess in Venezuela is getting worse, but while that country is literally starving to death under the yoke of an incompetent, corrupt and malignant socialist dictatorship the hopes of a Ukrainian-style peaceful revolution or bloodless coup that would end the Nicolas Maduro regime are dimming.
That was the most apparent conclusion following last week’s attempts by the U.S.-recognized interim president Juan Guaido to ship desperately-needed food and medicine into the country. The government fired on aid workers at Venezuela’s borders both with Colombia and Brazil, setting trucks laden with humanitarian aid ablaze and kicking off civil unrest everywhere.

Conditions are so bad in Venezuela that one citizen in 10 has fled, starvation is rampant, the economy has all but collapsed, violent demonstrations occur daily, and government repression has reached the levels of the old Warsaw Pact nations during the Cold War. When Guaido and his allies sought to alleviate some of the suffering by shipping aid in from Brazil and Colombia, with American help, and the regime resorted to violence in stopping that aid with Maduro calling it a “Trojan horse” to bring revolution with it, it didn’t just signal how low the dictator will go........To Read More....

My Take - I've said this before and I'm going to repeat it now.  There's no gain for the United States to invade Venezuela.  If you're a moral person you must have an overwhelming desire to send in the Marines and save those people, but the reality is if the U.S. invades we're called imperialist oppressors, and that epithet will be used over and over again.  If we stay home and mind our own business we're accused of being moral cowards, but that will pass.   This is a no win situation for the U.S., so I say let's save our money and the lives of our Marines and let the Venezuelans fix this themselves. 

Remember, Venezuelans, especially the ones suffering so badly now, originally voted in this communist cabal many years ago knowing full well who and what they were because they all wanted free stuff.  They're suffering now and it's because they earned it.  We owe the people of Venezuela nothing! 

Is that being cold?  Yes, because reality usually is.