Venezuelans go to the polls today to decide whether Castro lackey Hugo Chavez will remain president of the oil-rich country. If there's a ballot-box victory over Chavez, it will likely prove pyrrhic. Chavez doesn't believe in freedom. He believes in Communism. If Chavez wins today, he stays in office. If Chavez loses today, he stays in office.

Hugo Chavez is a strange man. But's he's done more the people of Venesuala in his last 6 years than the far right wing governments did in thier previous 30.. He's not a communist. He just believes in using the state oil monopoly money to ease the suffering of the poor rather than grow the size of the state by forcing it to pay the expernses of the rich. Go Chavez!

Here's a shocker....Jimmy Carter endorses Chavez. Just like a Democrat to stick his nose where it doesn't belong. Venezuelans don't know what's best for themselves....Jimmy Carter know's what's best for the Venezuelans. "The vote appeared to be clean". What an ass.

What an ass yourself. You know damn well that Carter didn't endorse shit. He was an election monitor. Chavez won fair! Apparently people want a government that will help the poor, not call them lazy and put them in prison, like we do here in America.

We put lazy american's in prison? I think not, unfortunately they enjoy the comforts of a democrat endorsed policy known as Welfare. Whatever medication your on DB please double it and add 30. If you dislike America that much please feel free to leave.

DB, Look at the facts instead of getting all ideologically upset: the only poor people we put in prison in this country are the one's who are _not_ being lazy (those one's get checks) but rather the one's who are being active -- say, stealing my car radio and licence plates, selling drugs, assaulting and robbing and murdering people, etc. etc.

This may not actually be what you are like in real life, but so far you have presented yourself as a rambler with no ability to focus on the facts. Rather, in every post you have made, you are shrill and make ideologically motivated points that are not essentially related to the issue at hand. Learning to argue starts with learning to discriminate between the relevant and the irrelevant. Here the issue is Chavez and you start a tyrade about how we Americans like putting poor people in jail for being lazy -- what?! This claim is both false and irrelevant.

Get you feet back on the ground.

Gee d'ere, DB...you're, uh, kinda all over da place...what wit da lazy americans, and da communism, and da DNC talkin' points and whatnot.

I'm all confused!

Hey DB. Adults like you who go by initials deserve to contract my favourite two initials...VD.

I wasn't trying to say we put lazy people in prison. I was trying to say that we call poor people lazy if they can't find work and put a good deal of them in prison. That is exactly what we do. There is a highe r proportion of the American population in prision today than there is in any other nation on earth. There is a higher proportion of the American population in prison today than the was in the Soviet Union before its collapse. Most of these people are poor. Most of these people and non-white. If you don't notice these things then your're not living in the real America. Your living in your pussy whipped cookie cutter suburban fantasyland watching fox news thinking that your intellectual and patriotic because you watch a graphic of the American flag pop up on the screen a hundred times a day and listen to some Conserviative hack spew propaganda bs. ....And shorty: these ramblings are intentional. If you would like a rational argument to back up anything I ramble about, just ask.

To argue the Chavez point. In fact Hugo Chavez has been elected in a democratic election with full universal sufferage on three seperate occasions. He has also survived an anti-democratic military coup and recently prevailed in the opposition's effort to recall him. He is the legitimate national leader of Venezuela. This is not an ideological opnion. This is fact. The results of his first few elections were not seriously contested. The results of the recent recall have been confirmed by international election monitor. Anyone who believes in democracy must believe that Hugo Chavez is the legitimate President of Venezuela, as he has won his post in democratic elections. As to the charge that Chavez is communist, this is false. He is no nor never was a member of the communist party. He has not instituted to any significant degree any policy that could be legitimtly deemed communist. He has kept his recpect for the democratic process, has posed no threat to private property, and has acted in accordance with the consitution. If he is guilty of Communism it is only gulit by association, as the Chavez administration and the Castro regime are on friendly terms. The United States and Iraq were on friendly terms in the 1980's. Did that make Reagan a Bathist dictator? Concerning the remark that "if Chavez wins today, he stays in office. If Chavez looses today he stays in office." This remark appears to make Chavez look anti-democratic, when in fact Chavez was democratically elected and had promised to honor the results of the recall vote. Aside from the promises, it is hard to see why Chavez would not have honored the results of the vote, seeing as how he would have had an opportunity to regain his post in a manner of months at the next election. These are fact gentleman. To insert my opnion into the matter, this seems to be a classic case of the privledged rich (the right?) trying to force thier will upon the rest of the country. It worked in the US in 2000. But in Venezuela, thank god they still have democracy!

I have a feeling that many of you think I'm rambling simply because my posts are long. I'll simplify for you:

Chavez is president.
Chavez like democracy.
Chavez win recall fairly.
Chavez still president, rightly.

And Feck, loving America means being able to admit that it has problems, and being able to imagine solutions. Blind love is no love at all.

http://www.pixunlimited.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/steve_bell/2004/08/16/bell512ready.jpg

db, I guess it's safe to say that you are above all else, long winded. Your just arguing with yourself. I recommend you socialize more.

America may certainly have its problems, but we handle most social and economic issues better than most countries do which is to say we are typically more civilized. At least here, people have a chance to live in relative freedom. And, if they break the rules, there are consequences.

If you truly believe what you’ve been writing DB, I feel sorry for you as you are getting your information from the wrong sources and your ideologies are totally unrealistic.

There isn’t, and never will be a Utopia. As a liberal, you are typically trapped into looking at the World as how you’d like it to be as opposed to how it is. And even with your best intentions it will probably continue to be as it is.

Just to comment on one of you most current topics: people don’t go to prison because they are poor. They go to prison because they commit crimes and get caught.

Now, you can break that down anyway you want along social, racial or economic lines but, the facts is the facts.

DB: You sure seemed to say that we put poor people in jail for being lazy. Whatever. Perhaps, your point was merely that in America a lot of people who are poor go to prison. Note: They are not there because they are poor or lazy, but rather because they break certain types of serious laws. Do you want to institute some other forms of punishment?

You complain that in America a lot of people who are poor are considered lazy. The question becomes: doesn't this have a grain of truth? A lot (not all) of people who are poor in this country are poor because they and their parents haven't worked hard (or because they are crazy or addicts etc). After all, we are not Venezuala; as a rule hard work pays off in America. Not always, but mostly. Can you offer an alternative explanation of why poor people from South America like to come here?

So if the question is "Who treats the poor better, America or Venezuela?," the answer is obvious. We have a country where poverty is the exception and where poverty is overcome-able within a generation by good behavior and hard work. Notice also that our poor by and large are not "poor" when compared to South America's poor. That is, they often still have telephones and cable TV. Again, your ideology is clouding your judgement of facts. Just think: would you rather be poor and in the US or in Venezuela? If you are tempted to choose the latter, note how many South Americans vote with their feet on this one, and they are not migrating to Venezuela.

Disclaimer: I am not being complacent about poverty in the US. I just think that it doesn't help any to exaggerate it and be melodramic about it and falsely blame the rich or the government. All this does is _make us feel better about ourselves_ because it shows we care. (This I believe is the most common motivation of liberal rhetoric about poverty).

Mr. Boyle, I realize the many on the left do have the utopia problem. So do many on the right with thier moralising. But that is aside from the point. I hardly believe that I am being utopian by wishing that America did a better job of keeping people out of prision than the Soviet Union. I hardly feel that I'm being utopian to say that it is possible to lower crime rates and incarseration rates simulateuousy. Japan has dones it. Europe has done it. Nearly every market democracy has done it! Utopia is a plave that exists only in the mind. I've been to Japan. I've been to Europe. They exist. And if they can manage to lower thier prison populations without raising crime rates, than so can we.

Shorty, thank you for offering a cogent argument, rather than a personal attack. You are right that por people go to prision for breaking laws. In our system of justice they couldn't go without doing that first. Of course they break the laws, but so do a lot of people. The fact is the poor get caught more often because the police know they are defenseless. As an example, I live in a majority white town on the edge of Detroit. Growing up I would see police cars stopping the cars coming in from Detroit. Nearly everytime a car was stopped the driver was black, and talking to a few of these people one day at the courthouse (where I was interning) I realized that they were all stoped for things a white person never would have been. A broken tailight. A slight swerve in their driving. Suspision of DUI, with no actual evidence. These people were technically breaking some law, but in reality they were being stoped for being black in rich white town. This kind of thing happens all over America, and it is Utopian to be blind to it.

Shorty, as to your Venezuela comparison, I believe that you are comparing apples and oranges. I suppose it is correct to say that the poor in the United States are better off than the poor in Venezuela. But there are a number of collarys to that statement. The first is that the cost of living in the United States is far higher than it is in Venezulea. A poor persons salaray goes much further in Venezulea than it does here, and in the United States it is absolutly nessaary to buy expensive things just to get a job. (A car, or example, to get to work.) Second, in parts of Venezuela, like most parts of the third world, there exists a much larger non-monetary economy than in the United States. For example, if you mow your nighbor's lawn than he agrees to grill you dinner the next evening, that is a non-monetarty transaction. These transctions are much more common among the poor in many countries because they have so little monetrary value, but they still have labour resources to provide. The fact is if you were in the United States, worked minnimum wage for Forty hours a week, you'd barely be able to afford housing and food. In Venezuela you could use the non-monetary economy to shack up with say a relative and eat the community's food. The survival of traditional subsitance economies in the third world actually makes life easier for the very poor. That system is dead today in the United States, although it was alive as little as a generation ago in the South and rural Appalachia. So the comparison with Venezuela is quite misleading as the economic circumstatces are so very different. A better comparison would be to the rest of the first world, where most nations do a better job of keeping thier poor out of prison and in the workforce where they belong. I believe the difference is education. The facts are that a poor resident of South Korea is more likely to get a quality education than a poor resident of Detroit. Education is an absolutly vital tool to survive in today's economy. And, as many of you mentioned, so is hard work. But to succeed in any job, you have to work hard, and you have to have the right tools. One without the other just doesn't work. It is the individual's responsiblity to work hard. It is the community's resposiablity to educate. That is where we fail the poor in the US.

Lastly, I do not believe that caring about the poor is done to make rich people feel good about themselves. Today's uneducated poor youth is tomorrow's crminal. Taking care of the poor is in everyone's self interest.

Hey DB! If you liked Europe and Japan so much, why don't you just stay there! You commie!

I really hate to launch personal attacks DB, but you do seem a bit nutty.

You’ve been to Japan and you’ve been to Europe, so obviously you’re an expert on their methods of law enforcement, legal systems, and incarceration policies? I think not.

That doesn’t seem to stop you from comparing your lack of knowledge about these systems with what we do here in the U.S. and jump to the conclusion that they are doing it right and we are not?

Tedious, man.

You seem to be a real stream of consciousness kind of guy.

This country has the highest or at least one of the highest standards of living in the World. That standard trickles down and the poor in this country, by degree, are better off than most places on the planet.

The social safety net that our government and some private social welfare groups provide typically insures that people do not go hungry, do not go unsheltered, do not go unclothed and do not go without some form of assistance with mental and physical health issues.

Now, understand: THERE ARE POOR PEOPLE, THERE HAVE ALWAYS BE POOR PEOPLE, THERE WILL ALWAYS BE POOR PEOPLE.

It is a fact of human existence. It could also by example be shown that many poor people remain poor by choice.

Others who are poor may not want to be but are because they don’t want to work and given the chance to work, they won’t. I personally know people like this.

As Hans says “Listen to me now and believe me later”.

It’s true.

Please Mr. Boyle. I've read crime statistics and incareration figures to understand the workings of criminal policy in those nations. I meerly mentioned that I had visited them to prove that they exist, defending myself from the charge that my ideas on crime are utopian and unworkable.You must understand this, don't obscure the issue the wild accusations. And I do believe that what those nations are doing are preferable to what our nation is doing. The statistics do not lie, our nation holds the equvlent of the entire population of Scotland in on prisons. Of course they always have and always will be poor people. That dosen't mean that our government has to abuse this fact by putting a disproportate number of the poor behind bars. Never accuse me sir of speaking about this issue as if I knew nothing of it. My father has been a US District Attorney for decades. I understand, firsthand, how the criminal justice system works, and how the poor are disadvantaged in it. I have a feeling your knowledge of the court system comes from the few seconds that you pass by CourtTV on your way to Fox News. I am not, as you seem to believe, arguing for the abolition of differences in wealth. Don't put words in my mouth. I am meerly arguing that we can do a better job of taking care of our poor people, and our whole society, if we didn't put so many of them in prison for petty things.

Ya know DB your otta ur mind! What do you think we should do if we don't put the poor in prison! They're no good for nothing anyhow. Heven't you read The Bell Curve? Poor people are poor because there stupid! Stupid people deserve to be jail. And in an earlier post you said that most people in prison are non-white. Who cares if they're non-white!! They commited the crime, they should do the time. Besides. Everyone knows the darker complexioned are genitically predetermined to commit more crimes. It's not an accident that more black folks are in jail than whites. Is it? That's just the way the lord made them boys. Ain't nothing we can do about it!

Assuming any of you out there are true consevatives, dosen't it bother any of you that six million people are effectivly recieving a government subsidy while they could be gainfully employed in the economy.

Anyone intersted on the Original question on this board should read this report here:

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=139408

Oh no another long thing to read!! Please take me to back to my Fox News where everything is so short and simple! Where everything is black and white!!

One last comment in rebuttal to DB just to answer the question: in the case that persons are able to work (ie. No physical or mental handicaps), yes, it bothers me very much that there are people living off of subsidies that I indirectly provide.

The fact that we have such social safety nets, for most people, kills the incentive to HAVE TO do anything. Consequently, we have a subclass of “poor” people who could work and propel themselves out of relative poverty but don’t.

Why should they work at McDonalds when they can sit home, drink and/or drug, have sex and babies which we will all continue to pay for?

Thank you FDR and all of the pandering pols who followed who continue to dismiss the rest of us hard working taxpayers for votes.

Finally, your observations and pending argument about the poor is really not an argument at all. As said: THERE WILL ALWAYS BE POOR PEOPLE. To believe that the provision of subsidies or not will change this is ludicrous.

Yeah ok. Subsidies are not supposed the change the fact that people are poor. It is supposed to ease thier suffering. And what the hell do you thin FDR was supposed to do. Do you hink millions of prople didn't work during the depression because they were living off of subsidy and had incerntive to work? NO! There were no jobs around because the completly unregulated speculator's economy had collapsed around them. FDR regulated the markets. He introduced Welfare and Social Security. Even better he directly employed millions of Americans through government posts, cililian and millitary. And you know what? It got us out of the a depression caused bt the lassiez faire policies you espouse, and won a war against Nazi Germany whose supercapitalistic and militaristic tendencies you would probably admire, were it not for the sever social taboo of admitting so. And you know what jackass. Welfare moms. Lazy ignorant check cashere. It's all a myth. Perpetuated by the big media run by the rich who have an interest in lowering thier taxes and need to find a ratiionale. Please!! You're outraged that your money is going to poor people! Billions a year of your money is given away to companies that move jobs to China and India. Billions more is spent on graft in the defense industry. Taxes on the rich keep going down ,while taxes on us go up. Corporate taxes are evaded. Capital and estate taxes are repealed. All these outrageous things happening to the tax money, and your outraged bc a little bit goes to the poor. Give me a break. Stop reading the billionare press. Why don't ya come down here to Detroit and see what welfare's really like!!

Don't need to prove myself here DB, but I've lived some life and have experienced things first hand at the micro level. Some specific to our this current topic.

Your ramblings take on life issues at the highest levels and in areas where it is easy for you to explain and rationalize your warped socialist views.

I would say that you are either a post graduate high schooler or a budding young Trotskyite college student.

Public college I would suspect.

Mike, don't give me this shit. This isn't socialism, it's FDR liberalsim.