Bus drivers in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, have paralysed the city for eight hours by blocking the streets with their vehicles to protest against the country’s economic crisis.
Protest in a third world city by causing a traffic jam…….and yes, sadly, third world is about right for Caracas now.
You can give a country everything. A great climate. All the land they could want. Rain. Sea coast.
And oil.
But if you fill the country with feckless Italians, and other Latins, what do you expect? They will be Latins. Culture is nearly impossible to change.
The problem is socialism not an inheritance of excessive emotion.
Rather ironic considering the current president rose to power on the back of the Bus Drivers’ Union. I bet half the people protesting thought it was all fine and dandy for a while. These idiots never learn.
Mr Ecks – “The problem is socialism not an inheritance of excessive emotion.”
And yet no one is born a socialist. Some people, some cultures, take to Marxism much more readily than others. Ashkenazi Jews for instance. Latin Americans do not, I think, take to Marxism as such. Rather their pie-in-the-sky magical thinking that they can associate with power and somehow unlimited wealth will flow down on them is usually rationalised as socialism. But it isn’t. It is just kleptocracy.
“Culture is nearly impossible to change.” Something changed the Romans into italians.
Something changed the Romans into italians.
Wasn’t it the Ostrogoths?
dearieme – “Something changed the Romans into italians.”
Yeah. Immigration.
It is much easier to turn an aquarium into bouillabaisse than to turn bouillabaisse into an aquarium.
A socialist paradise is having a few temporary difficulties due to neoliberal wreckers.
No problem. There is nothing that a good dose of peoples’ QE and high taxes on the rich and the upper middle class won’t solve. Maybe bash in a few skulls.
SEND RITCHIE IMMEDIATELY
“feckless Italians”
Err, Spanish, mostly.
@SMFS
As someone who has to deal with the S.American Latin mindset, on a daily basis, maybe I should explain it to you. The majority of S.Americans – which means the poor S.Americans – have very short time horizons, going forward. They look for today, tomorrow & not much further. They do not plan for the future or invest in the future.
There’s a very good reason for this. They have little experience of this being a beneficial strategy. Their experience is doing so results in the benefits being taken away from them. Often by force.
You have a culture that’s trying to transit from what’s been effectively feudalism to the modern world without the intervening few hundred years the UK enjoyed.
But they’re far from feckless. They have strong family ties & family means an enormous lot to them. I have one here who sends a large portion of what she earns back to support her family. When I met her it was most of it & she lived on next to nothing. Many of the other girls do the same. You know of many Brit girls would do similar?
At home, they’re not poor because they’re lazy. They’re poor because they haven’t had an opportunity to be anything else. And this is changing. Over the border in Colombia GNP’s been rising at 4.8% up until last year. Care to mention a country in Europe, even in Northern Europe’s achieved that?
OK, the Venezuelans have fucked up, big time. But haven’t they had some great advisors & supporters? Ken Fucking Livingstone?
Venezuela is most certainly a Third World country, on its way to something we see every now and again: a completely failed state. Nicaragua is a Third World country, unequivocally, and they have food and toilet paper and the electricity’s pretty reliable. They’re poor as shit, sure, but right now given the choice of where to live, Nicaragua beats Venezuela hands down. Do you realise how badly fucked a country has to be before Nicaragua looks like the soft option?
bis
absolutely.
Choices under a short time horizon (food tomorrow…) are radically different from under comfortable circs (pension, etc.)
That’s why the marshmallow test (qv) is a bit of a red herring.
I had a few Venezuelan urban middle class colleagues when I was pottering in that area 10 years + ago. They were much more political in non work conversation than your average European or Asian. By that I mean you could probably go weeks without discussing politics with your average Brit or Dutch or Norwegian, (Singaporean almost never), but middle class Venezuelans discussed it everyday.(yeah I know- understandable because of its’ continual crises– but that then becomes the norm for them) All the Venezuelans (mostly middle managers and engineers) 100% disagreed with Chavez with a passion, which is another reason why they discussed it so freely I suppose, whereas in most countries people don’t go full Hyde Park Corner at work because there’s bound to be someone who takes umbrage. That said most sort of accepted that it was democracy and the alternative was civil war, which they didn’t want and they’d lose unless the US got involved which they didn’t want either , so they just moaned and thought if it gets too bad i’ll join aunty maria in florida.
bloke in spain – “The majority of S.Americans – which means the poor S.Americans – have very short time horizons, going forward.”
Thank you for that explanation BiS. But I think this part everyone has noticed.
“There’s a very good reason for this. They have little experience of this being a beneficial strategy. Their experience is doing so results in the benefits being taken away from them. Often by force.”
Which is pretty much what I said. Except this is not an Act of God. Nature does not send hurricanes of thieving tax collectors or storms of raping policemen. It is their brothers and sisters who do this to them. Their fellow countrymen. Just as they would do it to their neighbours if they got half a chance.
“You have a culture that’s trying to transit from what’s been effectively feudalism to the modern world without the intervening few hundred years the UK enjoyed.”
Feudalism would be an improvement. They never got it. What they have is a thieving kleptocracy and that is pretty much all they have ever had.
“They have strong family ties & family means an enormous lot to them.”
Because the policemen are corrupt. There is no alternative but family. Which is a good thing but it is a symptom.
“At home, they’re not poor because they’re lazy. They’re poor because they haven’t had an opportunity to be anything else.”
Whatever else you can say about Latin Americans they have really tried to experiment with every political form going. If there is a political option, they have tried it. The end result remains the same. Of course they have had every opportunity to be something else. The problem is that at the end of the day they are still feckless Latins. They always have been. They always will be. Or at least there is no sign whatsoever of them changing soon.
“And this is changing. Over the border in Colombia GNP’s been rising at 4.8% up until last year. Care to mention a country in Europe, even in Northern Europe’s achieved that?”
For a developed country like Sweden to grow like that would require a miracle. For a Third World country to do so ought to be expected. The question is whether Colombia can sustain it – and whether this is not a result of prolonged US intervention and FARC discrediting the Left as a whole.
“OK, the Venezuelans have fucked up, big time. But haven’t they had some great advisors & supporters? Ken Fucking Livingstone?”
No one asked them to listen to Ken. They could have asked Keith Joseph to advise them. Their mistakes are entirely their own.
bloke in france – “Choices under a short time horizon (food tomorrow…) are radically different from under comfortable circs (pension, etc.) That’s why the marshmallow test (qv) is a bit of a red herring.”
The original marshmallow test was done in Trinidad to poor children – equally poor children. And this is a chicken and egg problem once more. We have done this experiment. Well the Americans have. The government exists to lift poor Blacks into the Middle Class. By reserving Federal jobs for Blacks, in effect, a lot of Blacks have been raised into something like a Middle Class life. But two thirds of White Middle Class children remain Middle Class or do better. Two thirds of Black Middle Class revert to poverty. So it is not that comfortable conditions make for different choices. It is that different choices make for comfortable conditions. See Britain’s entire non-Muslim Asian population.
Hallowed Be – “All the Venezuelans (mostly middle managers and engineers) 100% disagreed with Chavez with a passion”
My experience with similar Philippinos is that, sure, they disagreed. But only because their relatives were being side lined and so all the good jobs were going to other people. It wasn’t an actual ethical objection to the new government. Just that the old oligarchs were being excluded by the new.
@SMfS
” The problem is that at the end of the day they are still feckless Latins. ”
Except, SMfS, depending on country very few S.Americans are Latins. Meet my girl & you’d be looking at someone who doesn’t look even slightly European. Oriental, if anything. She’s the inheritor of a culture was building megacities while Anglo-Saxons were still scratching fleas in wattle & daub huts. The Latins are the Hidalgo class have been pillaging the continent since an Italian hireling failed to find India.
bloke in spain – “depending on country very few S.Americans are Latins. Meet my girl & you’d be looking at someone who doesn’t look even slightly European. Oriental, if anything.”
You mean race does matter? I don’t suppose that being the heir of a culture of vigorous human sacrifice is much help in the modern world.
“She’s the inheritor of a culture was building megacities while Anglo-Saxons were still scratching fleas in wattle & daub huts.”
She is from Guatamala?
“The Latins are the Hidalgo class have been pillaging the continent since an Italian hireling failed to find India.”
Indeed. So the label “socialism” is misplaced. It is just more of the same kleptocracy they have had since Columbus. It is just that when the ruling oligarchy splits, the minority faction often sees a need to appeal to the mob to win them over. Latin politics since Julius Caesar.
They have strong family ties & family means an enormous lot to them.
This is actually part of the problem, at least as I saw it in Nigeria and the Middle East. No matter what somebody does, no matter what despicable behaviour he engages in, he will always be invited to the table for dinner because “he is family”. In functioning societies the cunt of a brother is ostracised.
“You mean race does matter? ”
Yep” It’s a toss up whether Colombianas or Venezuealas are the most beautiful women on the planet. I have to go with the former but I don’t want to find out what side my cajones should be buttered.
Aztecs were from northern Mexico. Do you find yourself embarrassed about your Afghan cultural inheritance?
@TimN
Indeed. There’s a brother over here in Europe. Small time drug dealer & general waste of space. Yet she still sends him the odd bit of money when he’s got himself in the usual shit. On the other hand, I get the impression, Europe he stays because if he went back home there’s another couple brothers would want a word about previous bad behaviour, has him this side in the first place. And “word” in that society can be the final.type.
bis: I would rate Venezolanas tops. Nicas are a bit unfortunate looking usually. But I can walk the 500m from one end of the mall near my office to the other on any given day and see thirty Ticas that would just take your breath away. After having lived in Bradford for a few years, it was an utter shock suddenly to be in a country with such an overwhelming density of female pulchritude.
SMFS is unfortunately indulging his tendency to ultracrepidarianism.
@BiC
I’d post a link to the Facebook page of a little honey from Cali. But I won’t. There may be guys with weak hearts reading this.
But that’s it, isn’t it? I sit around all day with mere 8’s & 9’s. I know there’s 10’s out there. I’ve occasionally glimpsed them. The average UK shopping precinct’d be lucky to scrape together a couple of 4’s. And that’d be Kensington.. Most of the UK’s on minus ratings. Scotland’s over the event horizon..
I sit around all day with mere 8’s & 9’s
Who think they’re 4’s. That’s the difference.
BiS
“I’d post a link to the Facebook page of a little honey from Cali. But I won’t. There may be guys with weak hearts reading this.”
Tease.
“But that’s it, isn’t it? I sit around all day with mere 8’s & 9’s. I know there’s 10’s out there. I’ve occasionally glimpsed them.”
Show off.
“The average UK shopping precinct’d be lucky to scrape together a couple of 4’s. And that’d be Kensington.. Most of the UK’s on minus ratings. Scotland’s over the event horizon..”
Yes, ok, we know…
“It’s a toss up whether Colombianas or Venezuealas…” Dogs the lot of them, Peruvians if you want real beauty.
And I wouldn’t shag a Brit for money, not a female one anyway, though you have some nice boys if you get them under twelve – and sheep.
“Show off”
Worse than that.
I get paid to do so.
Bloke in Costa Rica – “SMFS is unfortunately indulging his tendency to ultracrepidarianism.”
Nice word. Very impressive. Of course it is irrelevant. I have given my opinion on Venezuelan women on this blog in the past. But I have not in this thread.
What is more, the fact that you all have turned away from what I did say to talking about how pretty the women are is a good sign you know you have nothing substantial to say. You object to what I said but I expect you cannot even articulate why. You certainly have not tried to do so.
bloke in spain – “Yep” It’s a toss up whether Colombianas or Venezuealas are the most beautiful women on the planet.”
That comment was not meant as anything but rhetorically. Still it is interesting that neither Floppy or BiG is here to denounce you for daring to say some races are more attractive than others.
No matter. It is irrelevant. The issue is not whether the women are pretty or not. The question is whether they are capable of sane politics. Costa Rica aside, there is not a lot of evidence they are and plenty that they are not.
In the end, the modern world still depends on White people. Especially White men. As Whites pass from the scene – accepting voluntary genocide from shame – it may be that East Asians will pick up the slack. I hope so but I am not sure they can. The rest of the world is barely capable of basic agriculture without White people. Once Whites are gone, much of the world will slide back into something not far off the Stone Age. Some of it may merely be mediaeval.
“Aztecs were from northern Mexico. Do you find yourself embarrassed about your Afghan cultural inheritance?”
Torturing and eating prisoners of war seems to be pretty well documented right across the Americas. I would guess that the first Amerindian groups brought it with them and most of their descendents continued to do it. Whether the people of Colombia and Venezuela did, I don’t know but my guess would be that they did.
But if you are going to be picky about geography, perhaps you could point to us all a megacity her ancestors built while Anglo-Saxons were still scratching fleas in wattle and daub huts. Although in fairness some still are except they do so in giant concrete high rises.
SMfS
The depth of your ignorance about South & Central America, its people & its politics are so profound, you don’t leave a lot to argue about.
Plus, having spent more than an hour on the phone, last night, with my legal advisor. Who’s currently living in exile & was intermittently sobbing over the ruin that being done to her country & her people – I haven’t the patience.