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My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

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251–260 of 276 posts

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have given a lot of thought to this question. It seems fairly simple but given that they've taken the other route, that is, force more controls, the government would look bad. I think there's a lot of internal problems within the ruling party in regards to what should be done. Unfortunately, the president is the one unwilling to see differently or "betray" his ideology (or so it seems). There are also subsidies to…

If yourself or rafaelm could do with a food supply package and the postal system is working correctly, then email me with an address and list of hard to source foodstuffs. My email is my HN username AT fastmail.fm

This is very kind of you to offer. It wouldn't be fair of me to take you up on that, the postal system is not working but private companies doing "door-to-door" deliveries do work very well (most are connected with the government). I personally have used and highly recommend one (which I can let you know in PM if you require)

However if this is something within your possibilities, I'd love to pass this offer to anyone who needs it.

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have given a lot of thought to this question. It seems fairly simple but given that they've taken the other route, that is, force more controls, the government would look bad. I think there's a lot of internal problems within the ruling party in regards to what should be done. Unfortunately, the president is the one unwilling to see differently or "betray" his ideology (or so it seems). There are also subsidies to…

If yourself or rafaelm could do with a food supply package and the postal system is working correctly, then email me with an address and list of hard to source foodstuffs. My email is my HN username AT fastmail.fm

Thanks a lot I really appreciate it! If you want to help, I'll see if I can find a trustworthy organization that is helping kids that need food and medicine. They are the most vulnerable right now.

In their sick political games, the venezuelan government is not receiving any foreign aid because they say we don't need it. I'm not sure if there are any private organizations receiving donations. I know some of the door-to-door shipping companies the_vzlan mentions are receiving medicine and food packages but I really don't know if they are to be trusted.

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If yourself or rafaelm could do with a food supply package and the postal system is working correctly, then email me with an address and list of hard to source foodstuffs. My email is my HN username AT fastmail.fm

Thanks a lot I really appreciate it! If you want to help, I'll see if I can find a trustworthy organization that is helping kids that need food and medicine. They are the most vulnerable right now. In their sick political games, the venezuelan government is not receiving any foreign aid because they say we don't need it. I'm not sure if there are any private organizations receiving donations. I know some of the door-…

> I'll see if I can find a trustworthy organization that is helping kids that need food and medicine.

Sure, just pass on some information to my email address.

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If yourself or rafaelm could do with a food supply package and the postal system is working correctly, then email me with an address and list of hard to source foodstuffs. My email is my HN username AT fastmail.fm

This is very kind of you to offer. It wouldn't be fair of me to take you up on that, the postal system is not working but private companies doing "door-to-door" deliveries do work very well (most are connected with the government). I personally have used and highly recommend one (which I can let you know in PM if you require) However if this is something within your possibilities, I'd love to pass this offer to anyon…

> I personally have used and highly recommend one (which I can let you know in PM if you require)

Sounds like a good idea.

> However if this is something within your possibilities, I'd love to pass this offer to anyone who needs it.

You have my permission to pass the offer onto somebody else who needs it. Send details to my email.

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#255
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aha now that is an interesting question and I'm glad you asked. I know that I personally would feel responsible if I saw collectivism murdering yet another society and did not call it out for what it is. If I for example saw that people were dying of lead poisoning but instead blamed evil spirits then clearly I would be responsible for mass poisoning.

"Agree with me or you're among history's greatest villains" is neither a novel nor persuasive rhetorical strategy. You should try a different approach.

I in turn don't find an attempt at a straw man all that convincing.

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first paragraph is "the Nazis didn't have enough coal to burn 6M Jews"-level dishonesty. They would have found a way to populate all that sweet, sweet land, like any colonizer in the past or present. I agree with the second one. The "spoils" claimed weren't much compared to the destruction inflicted on their country and people. That has nothing to do with my original comment though.

Do you see many colonizers in present? I don't. I see rapid decolonization. Japanese leave rural areas and northern territories. Russians fled Central Asia, pushed off Caucasus, large swaths of land become anthropic deserts. French in no position to colonize Africa anymore, if anything they're getting colonized. Chinese flock to Southern coast and no longer push that hard demographically on Uighurs/Tibetans. Germans…

> Do you see many colonizers in present? I don't.

The main example of "old school" colonization (other than the Chinese example mentioned below) I can think of in 2016 is the Israeli colonization of the occupied territories.

Colonies provided wealth and a logistical advantage to their owners. UK and France both fought hard to hold onto theirs well past the end of WWII. More recently, Russia considered Crimea important enough to accept the economic punishment annexing it entailed.

> Chinese flock to Southern coast and no longer push that hard demographically on Uighurs/Tibetans.

Do you have a good source or book that I can read about this? I would like to know more.

> Germans don't even seem to flock to their Northern, Baltic shore. And it has better climate than absolute most of their supposed "scram".

The Nazis are not known for paying careful attention to the climate when drawing up their grand plans. Lebensraum was their official policy, and I doubt they would have left the local population alone, considering what they did to other undesirables.

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, this is the difference between socialism in a free market and socialism in a command economy. While the former may try to influence the market (through social programs, state investment, money supply), it still must bend with the winds of market forces. The latter is an imposition of structure irrespective of the market: It might be seen more as a rigid body that can stand in certain conditions but begins to…

There's no such thing as Socialism in a free market, that's a contradiction in terms. Socialism means non-free market, and uses extreme violence to accomplish its ends of nationalizing wealth and production (which are inherently linked). And indeed, very liberal applications of force is the sole means to accomplish such a thing, which is why all attempts at Socialism throughout history always involved the equivalent…

I think you're definition has some good elements - about nationalizing wealth and production, but I don't get where violence has anything to do with socialism. I've always considered Socialism to be "socializing" the provision of some goods instead of relying on the free market. Providing things like Street Cleaning, Birth Certificates, Roads, military, coast guard, street lighting, traffic lights, Police Services, K-12 education, Courts are all examples of common socialized goods by that definition. Different countries seem to socialize more (or less) than others. Some countries provide some spectrum of (more or less) socialized fire departments, health care, ambulances, emergency care, homeless shelters, etc...

With that in mind - countries like the United States, particularly in the latter half of the 20th century, are quite socialist in comparison to previous eras (though obviously somewhat less so than other countries).

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you see many colonizers in present? I don't. I see rapid decolonization. Japanese leave rural areas and northern territories. Russians fled Central Asia, pushed off Caucasus, large swaths of land become anthropic deserts. French in no position to colonize Africa anymore, if anything they're getting colonized. Chinese flock to Southern coast and no longer push that hard demographically on Uighurs/Tibetans. Germans…

> Do you see many colonizers in present? I don't. The main example of "old school" colonization (other than the Chinese example mentioned below) I can think of in 2016 is the Israeli colonization of the occupied territories. Colonies provided wealth and a logistical advantage to their owners. UK and France both fought hard to hold onto theirs well past the end of WWII. More recently, Russia considered Crimea importan…

I don't have good source on Chinese demography, picking info about it one line at a time.

Anyway, there's no reason to think that Germans would easily defeat post-Imperial Russian Republic (given no Bolsheviks and therefore no civil wars, no mass emigration, famines or murders). Soviets basically lost half of pre-WWII years on chaos.

Russia without Soviets would look more like 350M strong Norway than like 140M strong Nigeria how it ended up.

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in the 1930s, Russia was surging ahead and industrializing It (The USSR) was also busy having famines that claimed millions of lives. Because it was too busy selling gold and wheat to buy industry from Americans (that's who built all those plants). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor I think I'd skip an industrialization like that.

In the 1930s the US was also busy having famines that claimed millions of lives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl

There's no good evidence for a massive famine due to the dust bowl people lost their saving but few people died.

A famine is different from a crop failure. Crop failures can help cause famines,but typically famines happen because political and/or economic failures. For example in cases of extreme authoritarianism(like the USSR and China - PRC) and colonialism(Ireland, Nepal).

see http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/01/arts/does-democracy-avert-...

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a hell of a big difference between an inadvertent result of ill-considered agricultural practices and a deliberate campaign of genocide by starvation.

If there was a "deliberate campaign of genocide by starvation" happening, I'm sure I could look in the New York Times archives of the period and read about that. If I consult the archives, the reporters going through the Ukraine said reports of that were false. Also, all of Europe had a bad crop that year, I guess the Soviets were controlling the weather?

Note that a crop failure is not the same thing as a famine.

People and nations can buy and beg food, its political and economic systems which turn crop failure into famine. Hell sometimes you don't even need a crop failure.

> If there was a "deliberate campaign of genocide by starvation" happening, I'm sure I could look in the New York Times archives of the period and read about that. If I consult the archives, the reporters going through the Ukraine said reports of that were false.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty

> "Lying was Duranty's stock in trade," commented Alsop. In his memoirs British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, then The Manchester Guardian's correspondent in Moscow, talked of Duranty's "persistent lying" [20] and elsewhere called him "the greatest liar I ever knew.".[21]

> It was clear, meanwhile, from Duranty's personal exchanges that he was fully aware at the time of the scale of the calamity. In 1934 he privately reported to the British embassy in Moscow that as many as 10 million people may have died, directly or indirectly, from famine in the Soviet Union in the previous year. Both British intelligence[22][clarification needed] and American engineer Zara Witkin (1900–1940),[23] who worked in the USSR from 1932 to 1934,[24] confirmed that Duranty knowingly misrepresented information about the nature and scale of the famine.

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In contrast

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gareth_Jones_(journalist)

> he travelled to the Soviet Union and eluded authorities to slip into Ukraine, where he kept diaries of the man-made starvation he witnessed

> > I walked along through villages and twelve collective farms. Everywhere was the cry, 'There is no bread. We are dying'. This cry came from every part of Russia, from the Volga, Siberia, White Russia, the North Caucasus, and Central Asia. I tramped through the black earth region because that was once the richest farmland in Russia and because the correspondents have been forbidden to go there to see for themselves what is happening.

> > In the train a Communist denied to me that there was a famine. I flung a crust of bread which I had been eating from my own supply into a spittoon. A peasant fellow-passenger fished it out and ravenously ate it. I threw an orange peel into the spittoon and the peasant again grabbed it and devoured it. The Communist subsided. I stayed overnight in a village where there used to be two hundred oxen and where there now are six. The peasants were eating the cattle fodder and had only a month's supply left. They told me that many had already died of hunger. Two soldiers came to arrest a thief. They warned me against travel by night, as there were too many 'starving' desperate men.

> > 'We are waiting for death' was my welcome, but see, we still, have our cattle fodder. Go farther south. There they have nothing. Many houses are empty of people already dead,' they cried.

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