[throw_awayfwerq]

Well you can say the same for supposedly capitalist countries. I mean US elections are a farse of external (no, not the russians) buying our elections for their economic or geopolitical purposes.

Now riddle me this. Name me one failed socialist country that failed (as I believe all will) without massive Western intervention to ruin their economy. We're kinda pricks, aren't we?

[RobertoG]

I don't think it's fair to blame external influence always in those cases. It's not honest.

Venezuela's situation main blame should go, in my opinion, to the people in charge in Venezuela. My impression, is that they really don't know what they are doing. Never liked Chavez, but compared to the current one, the guy was a genius.

Other countries have showed that you can work discretely and apply politics that help the vast majority of the population instead of a few elites:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Correa#General_Balance_...

[throw_awayfwerq]

We tried a coup-de-etat within months of Chavez' victory. That doesn't set the stage for a pro-Western social democratic state, does it?

We tried to steal the Bolivian elections that got Morales in power. By then the American brand was so tarnished the ambassador got run out of the country.

So most of the blames does go to Chavez. But can we please pretend we're anything other than pricks?

[Frogolocalypse]

I'd like to think I have the same outlook for most of the places that I've lived. Mostly it gets better, because mostly, people are good. But people f up, and then they make it worse... That is life. Reading a bit of chomsky helped me form that outlook.

The world used to be much much worse. The world is getting better and better. Statistically speaking. We literally live in a golden age. For a good portion it seriously seriously sucks. But that ratio is getting lower and lower yes? 500 million people raised out of poverty in china alone over the past 30 years. That's gotta count for something, doesn't it?

[galacticpony2]

Define "massive Western intervention" first. Socialist policy at one point in history ruled half the world's economy. You'd think at that size, if those policies made any sense, it should be able to do fine even without the West.

[throw_awayfwerq]

A significant expenditure for us, an overwhelming one for the other side, of money, arms, and conflict to destroy a region's viability therefore ensuring that any (including capitalism) economic system will fail. The aim is force people to either capitulate to us in the hope we will bring in re-construction money, or terrorize others into falling in line.

Read Chomsky, he'll give you references (from the likes of the declassified CIA documents, ect)

For example

Russian Civil War. That's well before they "ruled half the world's economy". Btw, the side we picked were real pricks. The only ones who could make the Bolsheviks the better alternative.

Greek civil war. Here we started sweeping away the commies (who actually liberated Greece) while we stil at war with the Nazis.

Cuba, nasty embargo. Numerous terrorist act committed by our proxies. The point here is to demonstrate to L. America the punishment of going red.

Cambodia. Bombed them to the stone age destroying all their capital. We were so through, people predicted that millions would die even if the Khmer Rouge hadn't (the predictions, btw, predate the Khmer Rouge taking power).

Cambodian side note: by the 1980s we were siding with the Khmer Rouge against Vietnam. Politics and bed fellows and all of that.

Vietnam. We dumped so much Agent Orange that they can't grow non-poisonous produce if they tried. We destroyed all their industrial capital.

N. Korea. We bombed them so throughly that we ran out of civilian* targets. We bombed them for things we hung Nazis for (irrigation damns). Needless to say they had no capital.

Read more Chomsky for more fun (and references) !

* Did you really mean economy or landmass, or population? I don't think the combined socialist countries, at their height in the late 70s, got close to third the world economy, nevermind half. To be clear, i don't expect socialism to work. I just don't get why we bomb those who try it.

[galacticpony2]

You're talking mostly about military intervention, mostly before socialists got the chance to even implement their policy.

Now, wherever you start, a functioning economic system should be able to lift even a destroyed country up eventually. Just look at what Germany accomplished after WW1 (too bad they went for another war with what they gained).

What about all the Eastern European countries that abandoned socialism without a single bullet fired? What about all the former African socialist countries that few people ever talk about?

> Did you really mean economy or landmass, or population?

I'm talking about roughly half the world (people). I may be off with that figure, but suffice it to say it should be big enough to work autonomously.

[valuearb]

So defending South Korea from being brutally over-run by an unwarranted North Korean attack is intervention into North Korea? Somehow 60 years of direct access to the massive chines market and North Korea's economy is still a fraction of South Koreas.

How did we intervene in the USSR, the largest county in the world, to destabilize it. And how could we, given socialism is so efficient and they had all the massive resources they'd ever need, right?