Posted On: Tuesday - June 5th 2018 11:16AM MST
In Topics: Commies Student and other Snowflakes History Socialism/Communism World Political Stupidity
I guess I wouldn't have time to point out the times that Peak Stupidity has stated words to the effect of "TV is crap!", but, heck, if you aren't sure yet - here ya go. This morning, however, it was not up to me. the TV was blaring out some talk show, in a position where I had no way to shut the thing down, with a story that a regular customer of infotainment may already have heard about. It seems this guy who had gone down to Venezuala to pick up
Let me tell you about South America, though very generally, and about Venezuela. Back in the 1980's that country was the "crown jewel" of the continent. For various reasons, probably good stuff for another post, all the countries in Latin America has have been run badly for most of their histories. Simon Bolivar was the guy who liberated more than 1/2 the countries in South America from the Spaniards, who were no Magna Carta-drafters or Constitutional scholars themselves. Subsequent to these liberations, the mixed native-Spanish people have been running these semi-shitholes into the ground, pulling them out of the ground and back, in 10 - 50 year cycles. Some have been in the shithole phase for their entire histories so far - bad timing, that, huh? In general, down there, military juntas come and go, Commies take over for long periods, death squads try to get rid of the Commies, along with other people they never did like and so forth.
However, the Venezuelans had done well with their oil resources, and Caracas, the capital, was an up-and-coming modern city. The one immigrant I knew was a smart one, and did very well in the US, but saw no reason to bring anyone else from the big family up here. They were doing quite well down there. Now, that's nothing but an anecdote (if that) but I am going by the stories I was told of the place, though obviously a bit biased. As is the case through-out Latin America, there are always loads of the very poor. Who knows what would have happened if a stable government down had stayed in place in Venezuela? However, the Commies, starting with a long reign by Hugo Chavez, took over 20-odd years back, and the place eased itself ungracefully into shithole status. Could one expect anything else?
Back to the couple on TV - the man and new, supposedly-Mormon* bride, along with the guy's parents were on the show to talk about their terrible experience of being taken from their house and thrown in jail. It was either very brave or very naive of the guy to think he could go to that country, and everything would be just hunky-dory, like leaving Salt Lake City to visit Denver. I'm going with naive. Large amounts of dieversity, and the trouble that goes with it, may not be something Mormons are particularly aware of. Did he think Commies are just another group like the Protestants who didn't agree with the Mormon's religious practices and urged them to get the hell out and head to Utah. These people arrest, jail, and kill people that are not down with the program, along with others they just don't like at the moment. I didn't stick around by the TV to here what the reason was, but there didn't have to be one - forget it, Mormon, it's Latin America.
One more thing I did catch from the idiot box was that all parties, the 4 interviewees and the couple of interviewer ladies, all seemed to be on the same page regarding one subject. "They said we had guns." the man remarked, trying to explain this horrible "misunderstanding". "We didn't have any guns, but they still came back to put us in jail." What the hell is new, dude? Yet, they all seemed to agree, "yeah, guns are bad, mmmkaay." I"m just wondering, if say, half of Venezuelans had had guns in their homes, being somehow "allowed to" and all, whether the men who took this guy-on-TV and his wife to prison for a year or two might have had a little trepidation and decided "Nah, manana."
One consolation for us Americans should be that here are two (one present and one near-future) citizens that won't be voting for the Commie-types that run for office. You would hope that had been beat out of them, hopefully only mostly figuratively, down there in a Venezuelan prison. Who ever knows though, as the guy didn't talk like no Solzhenitsyn.
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[UPDATE 06/05 - Eve:] While looking for photos, I found out that the guy is one Josh Holt, and he was doing missionary work down there - still pretty naïve, but going to these places is part of the point. I imagine he met the lady down there, though I'd assumed otherwise from TV. That's what you get for not watching enough TV ... or too much!
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* I only wrote "supposedly" because, how does the guy know, as the lady did not seem to speak or understand English worth a damn? That's what you may get on the internet. You have to be a bit tolerant - as it stands today, these tolerances are something like 5% on height, 10% on age, and as much as 25% on weight. Caveat emptor, dudes!
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