Venezuela suffering through meat and sugar shortages

[Borodog]

My wife and I just saw The Last King of Scotland last night, about Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, who slaughtered some 300,000 Ugandans during his reign of terror in the 70's. After we got home she looked up Amin in a book I had gotten her (The Most Evil Men and Women in History; hey she asked for it; she's that kind of girl), which detailed exactly why Amin killed all those people. Some of it was old tribal hatred and grudges, but the majority of those killings were purely economic.

She just wrote a blog entry about the situation, and I thought people might be interested. It really puts into stark relief why socialism, strict government economic controls, and state attacks on private property lead so often to mass murder.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Last King of Scotland

We saw The Last King of Scotland last night. So well done. Very disturbing portrait of getting caught up in the snares of a dictator made insane by absolute power and absolute paranoia. Great characters. The Scottish doctor is not protrayed as a saint, which made him that much more interesting. And Idi Amin you want to like, and you understand his fears and mistrust. But then you see his actions and reactions...

I read more about Idi Amin after the movie. The movie had a footnote about the 300,000 Ugandans he had killed, but it glossed over why they were killed. The vast majority were not political enemies, per se. They were mostly Africans in little villages subsistence farming. So why kill so many? Because he's a deranged blood thirsty lunatic? What if he had a perfectly rational, logical reason to kill them?

Turns out he did.

In a nutshell - Amin comes to power in 1971 and the country has 20 million pounds sterling in the coffers. Inside of a year, he dwindled that to 3 million. Then Amin, a soldier but not an economist, does what dictators do when they find themselves lacking cash. He prints more. He's shocked when prices skyrocket and his beloved people can't afford basic commodities anymore. Of course this is not his fault. The blame lies with the greedy business sector. He expells Jews (for which Libya's Quadaffi sends him some cash) and takes their businesses. Then shortly afterward, he does the same with Asians and awards their confiscated businesses to cronies and fellow tribesmen. These people are soldiers, farmers, and friends, loyal to Amin but not skilled in business. They sell off the inventory and once the shelves are bare, they stay that way.

Amin is still not creating wealth for his people, and more importantly, his personal reserves are not impressive. To stay in power he must have at least the backing of the army. What can he do? He gets creative.

He knows that in his culture, when a family member dies, people will part with whatever possessions and money they own to bury their dead properly. They will spend a life's savings to find a missing body. Finally, a business a soldier can understand. His army is given government sanction for this brilliant scheme. Random Ugandans are kidnapped from the streets, tortured sometimes, and killed. The family is contacted and given a price of 150 pounds to go look for the body in a forest where dead bodies were hidden every where, like some macabre easter egg hunt.

Bodies not reclaimed were thrown into Lake Victoria. There were so many bodies that the crocodiles couldn't even eat them all and they would clog up the hydroelectric dam causing constant power fluctuations. Can you imagine? Seeing the lights dim and knowing its because of some body whose family had been tapped out of everything they owned already and couldn't afford to buy their corpse back?

I don't know what is scarier - a blood thirsty madman, or a cold-calculating opportunist. Either way, you're just as dead. I think Idi Amin was both.

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
It looks like the country is heading down the old, well-trodden path of Peronismo. It's quite simple.

Mickey Brausch

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Nothing is simple in politics:

Juan Perón

-Zeno

[lehighguy]

I can't really give you a time, because I can't predict the price of a barrel of crude. But as soon as it dibs low enough I can guarantee it.

[imitation]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Mao let 30-70 million chinese die for communism, bring on the worlds second largest economy yo.

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Mao bungled and botched, with ludicrous plans and programs, which instigated famine, and the Cultural Revolution, that resulted in the death of tens of millions of Chinese. It was Mao's old pal Deng Xiaoping that loosened the reins on the economy and set the economic framework that has allowed China to grow and become one the largest economies on the globe and give a chance for change to untold numbers of poor.

-Zeno

[/ QUOTE ]

I know it was a joke.

[Zeno]

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.. it was a joke.

[/ QUOTE ]

Beg your pardon. More often than not in this forum; it is difficult to tell.

-Zeno

[Mickey Brausch]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It looks like the country is heading down the well-trodden path of Peronismo.

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Nothing is simple in politics:

Juan Perón



[/ QUOTE ]Can we skip the first act and go directly to Evita Peron ?


Does Mrs Chavez look anything like this ?