Venezuelan gov't has been using "decree powers" for half a century!

[freshwest]

5. The term 'decree' is being used for dramatic effect. It's just an executive order, IMHO.

Last edited Fri Nov 29, 2013, 01:56 PM - Edit history (1)

Are Obama's EO's decrees?

I think not.

EDIT:

The emotional appeal of the word decree to many in the west is that of a monarch or a dictator and illegitimate in a democratic society. FDR was accuxed by the right wingers as acting the same way in the national emergencies which were destabilizing national government so much it made room for demagogues, fascists or communists to re-write the government to fit their ideologies and destroy national unity. The right wing of this country wants that to be the case again, so they can divide the country up into Koch kingdoms with all resources in their hands, so that people must bend to their religion, system of bribes and social order - in which many of us will be ground under their boot - as the Commons are being destroyed.

The situation in Venezuela is being painted by all sides according to their interests, and the ideology of Hugo and Maduro is a red flag that is not as palatable to us as that of FDR, which sprang from a different place in our history and culture.

We cannot make them be like us or fit into their box. The climate change issue is usually laid at the feet of the more prosperous nations, with longer standing regimes, merely because that is what they are, literally. In each of these 'first world vs. the third world' arguments, I feel that something has been left out.

There are forces or groups within all of these nations that went along gleefully with every reactionary regime that is installed. There are beneficiaries. They are entrenched and they have their supporters. Not all the people in those countries are bad off and expect to prosper under 'revolution.' They are not all villains, although some most definitely are, the paramilitary forces, etc.

We have been blessed to have had enough support for our own government here to not be assaulted by privately run militias for the rich and dangerous, as i call them. We are not far off.

Back to the decree term, I am not going to get caught up in the word game. Venezuelan law calls these legal decrees, giving legitmacy, I am still going behind the words to the reasons, effects and the end results expected from the measures being taken.

FDR wrote executive orders that closed the banks causing individuals to lose money, not just big players, and some have never forgiven him for that; he wrote the ones that interned innocent Americans of Japanese and other descent to camps; and pushed legislation through as fast as the could; increased the SCOTUS judges to stop the reactionaries and the obstructionists of his day from undoing the social democracy that led to the country most of us still are reaping the benefits of today.

These were called totalitarian actions by his opponents. PBO has made a few EO's that has been called reasons for his impeachment. We who support our government and social democracy do not see thesee as onerous. We cannot afford to do so, when we have the Koch brothers, demagogues and theocrats attempting to drag us back to the dark ages.

This is a discussion board, all things will be talked about. But for me, the threat of a Koch kingdom style of state by state and even national government is a greater threat than what is going on in Venezuela. Maduro was not the VP, or so I have read recently, much to my surprise when googling, making his sucession a controversy, but others say he would have been supported by Chavez.

Were the elections improper down there? And to whom? As Democrats, and people like Bernie Sanders as he said in a recent video, we believe in one man one vote. The Koch brothers and the GOP do not believe that, they believe in one dollar for each vote. They are fascists loosely speaking the mold of patricians and believe that the very word demo-crat is an abomination. It means to them, as I have argued witht them and libertarians, that demo-cracy is mob rule. That they want to be a Republic and it does not mean the same thing to them as it does to us when we say the Pledge of Allegiance which was written by a Socialist. They want to 'take back' the USA government to return to their chosen form of governance, the Roman Republic, with firm class lines, with the top being the wealthy patricians controlling govenment and society, and a slave class at the bottom, as the Natural Order of things. I've posted the writings of some of the philosophers so beloved by some and their views of slaves, those conquered and women as having no rights at all in the social order. This is no different from the GOP.

If you have made it through this confused ramble so far, I appreciate it. I am not really awake, my brain is scarcely working and I need some food and some coffee. I am also not in a argumentative mood either, or putting any of you down, but there is more to these threads that we are expressing, of hopes and ideologies and trying to fit all things into the same boxes.