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Filmmaker Michael Moore once celebrated Venezuela's socialism, but it has brought average Venezuelans nothing but misery. (AP)

Sometimes it's been hard to tell with socialist filmmaker Michael Moore whether he's trolling you or really serious when he says certain things. Case in point: An old tweet on Venezuela, vintage 2013, in which Moore celebrated the nationalization of that nation's oil company, PDVSA. It's been an unmitigated tragedy.

"Hugo Chavez declared the oil belonged 2 the ppl. He used the oil $ 2 eliminate 75% of extreme poverty, provide free health & education 4 all," Moore tweeted nearly four years ago.

Time hasn't been kind to Moore, in many ways. This tweet in particular now seems like little more than rank ignorance by someone who actually seems to believe that socialism a system that has never succeeded anywhere it's been tried on earth is superior to the free market.

But we shouldn't be surprised. After all, Moore's "documentary" "Sicko" paid glowing tribute to the Stalinesque, two-tier Potemkin village that is the Cuban health care system. Moore was used by Cuba's communist rulers, who let him film scenes of "typical" Cuban health care in clean and well-stocked medical centers that were used exclusively by VIPs, communist officials and cash-only foreigners.

He didn't film what the average people are subjected to: filthy clinics, bloody and bug-ridden hospital beds, medicine shortages and substandard care.

So you wouldn't expect Moore to get Venezuela's oil disaster right, either.

We mention this old tweet now because in a piece this week in Forbes, Johns Hopkins University economist and energy expert Steve Hanke shows just how wrong Moore was, calling Venezuela's PDVSA "the world's worst oil company." It's not hard to see why.

After socialist Hugo Chavez took Venezuela over in 1999, oil output for the newly nationalized oil company immediately began to slide, along with the nation's proved reserves. In 2003, faced with growing unrest and resistance to his heavy-handed rule, Chavez purged the company's management and replaced them with his socialist cronies.

The result has been an utter disaster. Venezuela used the oil company as a national cash cow, draining its coffers for short-term social spending projects that came to nothing. PDVSA, meanwhile, is a company in collapse.

Chavez died in 2013, which is what prompted Moore's tweet. But he was replaced by Nicolas Maduro, another deluded socialist. The country's decline has continued apace, and so has PDVSA's.

Hanke notes that the giant oil company owes just over $10 billion this year in debt payments but, after being raided repeatedly for its cash, is desperately short of financing for badly needed investment. Citing unnamed sources, Hanke says PDVSA has just $2 billion in cash on hand, while the government's foreign exchange reserves all it really has to stave off mass starvation, since Venezuela imports most of its food stand at just $10.5 billion.

Oil output is off 23% since Chavez came to power.

PDVSA, says Hanke, is in a "death spiral." So is the entire country.

Venezuela's devastated oil company, which sits on one of the world's largest pools of oil, is emblematic of the entire deeply troubled country. Because of the imposition of socialism, Venezuela's economy is collapsing. The once-prosperous nation is now ranked 179th in the world on the Heritage Foundation's respectedIndex of Economic Freedom, just ahead of another socialist paradise: North Korea.

Today, Venezuela suffers from endemic corruption, 800% inflation, a -19% annual GDP growth rate, and interest rates of over 20%. Rampant food shortages are causing malnutrition, and all the diseases that come from that. One area of improvement: Income inequality. Now, most of the country is equally poor, with the exception of those in power.

Maduro, of course, blames his country's woes on "capitalism." It's a bad joke, but it doesn't hurt capitalists. It hurts average Venezuelans. Children die for lack of decent food and medicine. Jobs are scarce, and families are being destroyed. Crime is rampant: The murder rate is now the highest in the world, a dubious honor that makes it safer to live in downtown Damascus or Tripoli than in Venezuela's capital of Caracas.

Just like the Castros in Cuba, Venezuela's older socialist twin, Chavez, Maduro and their allies have turned a country once known for baseball and beauty pageants into a living hell. Michael Moore and the many other celebrity fools who have held out Venezuela as a shining example of enlightened socialism should be ashamed.

Today, in the U.S., more than a third of college students in recent polls give a big thumbs up to socialism, preferring it to U.S. style capitalism. So here's an antidote to this Moore-inspired foolishness: Rather than continue to waste money on their kids' obviously useless left-wing indoctrination at college, parents would be wiser to fork over their money instead for their precious progressive snowflake to spend a year studying in that socialist paradise, Venezuela. That would be a real education, one that would last a lifetime.

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Link:
An Old Tweet From Michael Moore Underscores That Socialism Doesn't Work Ever - Investor's Business Daily

The logo of the legendary Mosfilm Studios, depicting the Vera Mukhina sculpture Worker and Kolkhoz Woman. | Mosfilm

Dear Editor,

I thank you for your recent article Ten films that shook the world, detailing ten very earlySoviet films, as we look towards the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik victory over royal imposters, oppressors of the masses,and archaic forms of autocracy.

I am an arm-chair historian and am already working my way through these films, at least the ones that are easilyavailable online. Thank you, once again!

If you ever get the chance, consider viewing the Nazi propaganda films such as The Eternal Jew, and the work of LeniRiefenstahl on behalf of that insanewallpaper hanger and thelittle corporal, Herr Schicklgruber.These films, especially The Eternal Jew, are so outrageous in proclaiming every lie about the Jews.

Finally, Im out here in rural western Wisconsin, small towns mostly, so having your work andeducational phone/video conferences keeps the flame alive in my heart that once we move beyond the currentultra-right, so-called populist regime that we will one day come to realize, more and more, Bill of Rights socialism being embraced by the working class in our land.

In solidarity,

Darren Foster

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Enjoying Bolshevik films and hoping for socialism - People's World

For those thinking that the French could be on the brink of a collective epiphany, you might want to hold your bets. Even if the people of France wanted a badly needed economic upgrade to bring their nanny-state system into the 21st century, theres no presidential contender willing to give it to them. Any candidate who ever tiptoes into economic reality is promptly vilified and has to maneuver to avoid criticism. And while some say that the French would never go for serious economic reforms, how are we to know if theyre never given the option?

As Ive discovered while living in France for almost a decade, capitalism is a dirty word in French politics. But no one actually attacks capitalism by name. Instead, they use the term ultraliberalism or neoliberalism. The word liberal isnt synonymous with leftism in France like it is in North America. (For that, the French actually say leftism.) In France, liberalism is used in a more classic sense. If youre a conservative proponent of free-market economics and limited government, youre labeled a liberal in France. Or, heaven forbid, an ultraliberal.

Based on the way the current presidential front-runners are using the term ultraliberal to vilify each other, youd think that the most important thing in this election is to convince French voters that the nanny state will persist at any cost.

The candidate who comes closest to being a free-market proponent is independent Emmanuel Macron. During his mandate as minister of economy, industry and digital affairs, Macron was responsible for the entrepreneur-friendly law for growth, activity and equality of economic opportunities but backed off the idea of bumping the French workweek back up to 40 hours from the current 35 hours.

National Front leader Marine Le Pen constantly hammers Macron for his free-market worldview. In economic matters we know what he wants, Le Pen said. It is ultraliberalism, it is death to the poor.

Yes, there are actually French citizens who believe that their woes are caused by too much capitalism. I challenge Le Pen to show me how true free-market capitalism has failed the French. Im guessing that any example would involve socialism or corporatism that is, government involvement in capitalist efforts.

Meanwhile, former French Prime Minister Francois Fillon of the Republican Party is already hamstrung with a Thatcherite label, as if it were an insult. Fillons foes attacked him for suggesting that health insurers compete for business, and for a proposal focusing universal public insurance on serious or long-term illnesses, and private insurance on the rest. He eventually pulled this proposal from his platform. Some French citizens are taxed half of their income for social security and health care, yet the system reimburses little beyond serious illness. Still, no politician has shown the backbone to force the government monopoly to compete with private insurers, as is the case elsewhere in Europe.

French politicians always seem justify their highly expensive existence by convincing voters that the solution to their problems is more government management. Le Pen has been on the campaign trail promoting an upgrade to the socialist concept: the strategic state. But socialism, however strategic, is still socialism.

Le Pen is correct to argue for increased national sovereignty and border control, but her nanny-state economic policies, which vilify true capitalism and ultraliberalism, wont fix France.

The benefits of capitalism dont flow from the government down; theyre created by keeping the governments hands out of the cookie jar. No one needs the government to muck around under the guise of strategic statehood investing money that the French cant afford in things that would already be thriving if people actually wanted them. Just leave more money in taxpayers pockets and see where it ends up.

The French system of government, which is really just an updated version of the old monarchy, has always played favorites, picking winners and losers based on proximity to power. It doesnt help that power is concentrated in a single city everything outside of Paris is a power desert. Inequalities give rise to revolt, which in turn creates a need to quell it. Enter unions and taxes to give the illusion of leveling the playing field. Where is any durable wealth created for the individual in this scheme?

Under the current French system, there is no incentive for the individual to break free and create his own wealth. And the European Union, endorsed by Macron and Fillon, continues to create an economic burden. Unfortunately, there is no French presidential candidate willing to free the French people from the fiscal straitjacket in which they find themselves. Until one comes along, French presidential elections are doing little more than shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic.

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French Still Unwilling to Try Backing Away From Socialism - Wheeling Intelligencer

I was reading through the Republican health care bill last night, and it struck me that a lot of longtime Republican hobbyhorses are missing. This is a tentative guess on my part, since big chunks of the bill look like this:

You can hide a lot in legalese like that, which is why it pays to have experts pore through the text of a bill looking for Easter eggs. That said, I'm pretty sure the bill doesn't include any of the following:

Why is this? If you look carefully, you'll see what these things all have in common: they don't directly affect the federal budget, which means they can't be passed via reconciliation. They have to be passed in a separate bill under regular order, which means Democrats can filibuster them. Republicans don't have 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster, so they can't do any of this stuff.

Republicans can starve the subsidies to make Obamacare virtually useless for the poor, but they can't repeal the entire law. The result of such a partial repeal is likely to be such obvious chaos that they'll be lucky to get their bill passed in the House, let alone the Senate. There are bound to be at least three senators who just aren't willing to clap loudly and pretend that everything is OK. It's very hard to see a path to passage for this bill.

UPDATE: I originally said that Timothy Jost claimed the GOP health care bill eliminates Obamacare's medical loss ratio. That was a misreading on my part. He was talking about the actuarial value of the various metal levels. Apologies. I've removed this from the text.

See original here:
The GOP Health Care Law Is Missing a Surprising Number of Tea Party Hobbyhorses - Mother Jones

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When crowds flooded town hall meetings with Republican members of Congress a few weeks ago, it appeared that although its 2017, America wants to party like its 2009.

That was the year we saw the same thing. Following President Barrack Obamas stimulus bill, the fallout of the bank bailouts and the Affordable Care Act being advancedon Capitol Hill, Democrats were bombarded with an angry conservative grassroots movement we came to know as the Tea Party. They opposed the Washington establishment, government spending, erosion of Christian America, Obamas health care plan and, of course, Obama himself.

That movement was dismissed by Democrats at all levels. What was thought to be an inauthentic stunt turned into a political revolution, as the Tea Party helped Republicans retake control of the House of Representatives in 2010. Since then, its crusaders have hijacked the Republican Party, steered it further right and created a political climate that led to a bombastic billionaire businessman capturing the GOP nomination for president and then the White House.

In the age of Trump, with more noisy town halls following a contentious primary race for their presidential nominee, many are wondering if we are seeing the rise of the Tea Party again: the Democratic Partys version.

Republicans are quick to brush off that notion, seeing the recent protests as nothing but the efforts of big progressive organizations seeking attention, fueling the paid protester storyline. President Donald Trumps press secretary, Sean Spicer, said that such protests are not these organic uprisings that we have seen over the last several decades. The Tea Party was a very organic movement. This has become a very paid, Astroturf-type movement.

Interestingly enough, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi used the exact same word in 2009 to describe the Tea Party movement, saying this initiative is funded by the high end we call it Astroturf.

Now, it is wrong to believe the energy of these town halls and growth of progressive activism alone will result in a sudden Democratic resurgence of 2010 proportions by as soon as 2018. Progressives dont have the time or the organization the Tea Party had at this point eight years ago. Thats why the movement is largely being ignored by Republicans.

But that doesnt mean it wont happen eventually. The progressive wing of the Democratic Party is charting the same coursethe Tea Party was on.

Hilary Clinton following a Democratic Primary rally in Syracuse. Michael Davis photo | Syracuse New Times

It doesnt start with money or unconventional political candidates. It starts with anger. Progressives nationwide have become more and more frustrated with the federal government over the last few years, starting with a rejectionof the Bush administration in 2008. It has continued with anger over religious overreach, suppression of the gay and transgender communities, womens rights on abortion, climate change deniers, the power of corporations and influence of big money in politics.

But what has given that anger real traction is economic inequality, especially the minimum wage, rising student debt and fury at big banks, a fury thatreally came to life during the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011.

But its not just about anger. A populist movement needs to have leaders who first understand that anger and then provide a message that gains followers. The Tea Party had Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rep. Michelle Bachmann and Sen. Ted Cruz. Now the progressives have Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Rep. Keith Ellison and moviemaker Michael Moore. They were able to galvanize voters and got progressives not only national attention but enormous momentum in 2016 when Sanders was able to win 45 percent of Democrats in the race for the partys presidential nomination.

Which leads into the next portion of the pattern to power: rocking the party establishment. After all, Tea Partiers werent just upset at Obama or the Democrats, but also George W. Bush and mainstream Republicans, if not more so. While most progressives embraced Obama, they feel he became the system he went in saying he would change, at the same time making the Democratic Party out to be one for corporate elites and not working-class Americans. They vastly opposed Obamas policy in the Middle East, his role with banks and cheerleading for the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

They felt ignored and then shunned when the Democratic National Committee seemed ready to rigthe primary race against Sanders, a candidate who many polls found had a better chance of defeating Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton. They felt shut out again when their choice to lead the DNC, Rep. Ellison, was bested by Tom Perez, who they feel represents more of the same old-same old that has overseen the party while it has been decimated at every level of government over the last few years.

After being thwarted by the establishment and possessing a drive to oppose Trump at all costs, there is now an effort in the progressive movement to not just transform the Democratic Party, but take it over, just like the Tea Party did to the GOP. Just like in 2010 when mainstream Republican incumbents were challenged by conservatives, progressives are threatening primary challenges to Democrats in future elections, particularly ones who dont fully obstruct the Trump agenda.

#We Will Replace You is an organization founded by the left who are doing just that. Their statement: Do everything you can to resist Trump, or we will replace you with someone who will.

This comes at a time when many Senate Democrats are vulnerable in the 2018 midterms and have been playing the middle ground in hopes it will maximize their chances of re-election, like Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a state Trump won by 40 points. Manchin has voted for all of Trumps Cabinet picks except four and is already painted as a foe to #We Will Replace You.

The organizations minimum requirements to avoid a primary challenge from the left include voting against every Trump administration nominee, preventing the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, showing a will to slow down the legislative process and pushing to oust Steve Bannon as Trumps chief strategist. Those qualifications are ridiculous since Bernie Sanders doesnt even match them all. So they probably serve as guidelines more than anything. Still, the threat has been made.

But the DNC isnt keen on the idea that embracing progressivism is going to help win Senate seats in West Virginia, Missouri or Indiana. And primary challenges might distract Democratic candidates from holding onto their seats and dampen turnout.

But if Democrats hotly contest the prospect of primary challenges, it will further anger progressives. And if the left backs down and Democrats dont make any gains or lose more seats in 2018, it will further anger progressives.

Thats why the Democratic Tea Party is poised to emerge. That is why it is inconceivable that Republicans dont see the progressive movement as a credible threat in the near future. That is why it is ridiculous that Democrats continue to sing of party unity.

The history is telling. The signs are directing. Yes, progressives arent the Tea Party yet. But the water is beginning to boil.

The rest is here:
Tea Party-Style Anger Brewing In Democratic Circles - Syracuse New Times