no, chavez did the sign of the cross, to what i assume was to make fun of bush. however, bush claims to be born again, a faith that does not do the sign of the cross.

Right, so your rationale for what you said before is.....?

No.. I'm pretty sure he did it because he (Chavez) is Catholic.

:o :embarass:

With all due respect to the person whom I took my username from, I'd rather not become another sucker for this libertarian socialist know-it-all.

Oh no, I'm smelling sulfur!

just say sppunk and get it over with

do you even know what those two words mean?

I have worn a red shirt. More than once. There, it is now out in the public domain. Draw whatever conclusions you wish.

Reading the transcript of Chavez's speech was pretty interesting. He actually makes some good points about the US and the UN, such as covert meddling, controlling foreign policy, lack of tolerance for international dissent, ineffectiveness etc., but his own predudices and subjective opinions hang over everything.

Athenian 'ideal' of democracy. Unless of course you were a foreigner. Or a slave. Or a woman. And the Senate was simply a collection of aristocratic vested intersts. 10/10 guys.

Cuba and Castro. Okay, the early US attitude helped to create this problem, but really - singing the guys praises like this. Does he have a portrait of Fidel (signed, of course) hanging up in the Presidential palace back in Caracas? Casto is the King of Cuba. Where is the debate, the tolerance of dissent?

Imperialism. Is he so niaive? The protection of interests and expanse of sphere of influence has always been the way of the powerful. Does he think America should just hand over the keys to China and crack off a salute as the ship goes down?

The UN. Ah, the glory days of the United Nations. Erm, when was this exactly? Oh yeah, when it was the USA versus the Soviets and their 'democratic' Eastern European allies. Man, where did it all go wrong?

Venezuela. Chavez is listened to because of Venezuelan oil. Period. Of course. this gives him a licence to play power politics on the big stage. See Imperialism above and the perils therin, Hugo. But, hey he has the backing of the Arab League (no vested interests for cosying up to a petroeconomy there I would assume) and...oh yeah, the African Union. Democracies of the world unite! He should just go strait ahead and start building a building in Caracas to house the new UN. Time is a-wasting.

Yes, it sounds like a contradiction, but that's what Chomsky is.

it's not Marxist conspiracies...

it's the Marxist culture that has great influence... Like, the idea of Pension plans. They are going the way of the horse buggy these days and one wonders how these ideas ever came up to begin with...and sadly, how many regular working people have allowed themselves to be manipulated so badly over many many years of working for a company.

to work for a company for x-amount of years, to then stop working and be gifted a check for the rest of your life.

My grandmother worked almost 40 years for the post office...my father worked over 30 years as a fireman, they both have nice government pensions to live out their days. Neither of them had a capatilistic bone in their body and how could they, what with the marxist influence in their way of work and life... and you might imagine what they thought good jobs were for me...but I digress.

please tell us what you think is contradictory about the term libertarian socialist tchocky

It's one of these ridiculous new flavors of socialism. They just throw the word "libertarian" in front so that people will think they're not insane, but instead they're just as socialist and anti-capitalist as every other group. They hate private property. The only difference I remember about these idiots is that they want the power with small workers unions and not the state.

It has absolutely nothing to do with liberty or libertarianism. They could have named it Happy Fun Time Socialism and gotten the same effect

it's not really new at all. The terminology maybe, but Geroge Orwell wrote about these communities in Spain that existed just before the civil war that functioned as this socialist community without state control, and there were people writing about it (a guy called Bakunin I think) around the time Marx wrote the communist manifesto.

I think libertarian socialism is just a term to replace anarchism. I could be wrong, but that's how I see it.

Also, I think the term "libertarian" has a different meaning in America than it does everywhere else. People who call themselves libertarian in the U.S advocate a kind of un regulated capitalism right?

Not at all. it puts power into the hands of unions and workers groups. that's not even close to anarchy
That's an incredibly simplistic way to look at it.

Well, not necessarily, sure a lot of unions today amass a great deal of power and really abuse it, but I think truly democratic and transparent unions would easily fit the description of Anarchism, though I wouldn't say that an anarchist state automatically creates powerful unions. Also, I would personally prefer power to be in the hands of unions than corporations, though neither is really desirable.

ugh... pipe dreams.

oh yeah, totally, thats why I posed it as a question, I'm not going to pretend I know much about the libertarian party in the U.S, but I'm aware there are differences between American libertarianism and European libertarianism.