a march-born in the eternal september

Homemade Flavored Tortillas

Instant Pot Pork Chops with Black Bean Sauce My super-fast recipe for Instant Pot pork chops with black bean sauce satisfies your sweet and savory senses all in one.

I know that many people who follow me are tired of the monopolistic brand of capitalism they experience on their mostly industrialized countries, and yearn for the sweet promise of socialism and communism about “community working” and “eating the rich”. But as someone that experienced a brand of socialism, I tell you: Socialism is when the obnoxious roommate that doesn’t do their dishes, plays horrible music loud late in the night every fucking night, and steals your booze and candy is the person in charge of all the stuff of the home. 

quoting:

On the other hand, the whole theoretical basis for the idea was completely smashed a century ago. From a historical perspective, every prediction that socialism would produce nothing but chaos, deprivation, poverty, suffering, and death turned out to be true. If both theory and history scream “Fail!” — and this failure affects things you claim to believe in, such as human rights and dignity — it might be time to rethink.

Among the most conspicuous of socialism’s failings is its capacity to generate vast shortages of things essential for life. This is a universal feature of a socialist “economy,” and it always has been. […]

In Venezuela, there is no meat, medicine, flour to make hosts for Communion, or reliable electricity, and the population is reduced to barter.[…] Consistent with all evidence, “famine is a disproportionately prevalent outcome of socialist systems,” writes American Enterprise Institute resident scholar Benjamin Zycher. There is no reason to think it will ever be otherwise.

There is a reason to think that many people will continue to deny that it matters. Consider the views of two London-based journalists, Alan Gignoux and Carolina Graterol, who were recently interviewed by Counterpunch. They looked at the absence of meat in Venezuela and praised the population for going vegetarian: “Mango trees are everywhere, so you can pick a mango whenever you want,” Gignoux enthused. As for the energy shortage, Graterol said, “During blackouts, people told stories, played music, or went out and talked on the streets. It was a paradise, no TVs, smartphones, but real human contact.”

Yes, they actually used the word “paradise” to describe Venezuela today. If certain leftists are unable to see why mass deprivation of food and energy is so bad, it seems hopeless that they will see cause and effect at work in small-scale instances of government intervention. After all, the entire economy doesn’t need to be socialist to achieve the effect of shortage, restriction, and deprivation.

[…]

What history and theory show about socialism is that in real life it has nothing to do with social welfare, improved conditions for humankind, or justice, much less fine-tuning the global climate to make it perfectly match scientific prognostications. Even when it doesn’t achieve economic collapse and famine, socialism defaults to an economy of restriction and corruption and the granting of terrible power to the ruling class, which then uses the system to pillage what it can while the masses suffer.