Just one mere week after actor-turned-activist Jim Carrey suggested people should “say yes to socialism,” a Venezuelan journalist is pushing back hard on that suggestion.
“We have to say yes to socialism — to the word and everything,” Carrey, who is among the richest celebrities in all of Hollywood, declared last week on the HBO show “Real Time with Bill Maher.”
“We have to stop apologizing,” he also said.
He made that comment after host Bill Maher expressed outrage that Republicans are attacking Democrats who veer toward the extreme and express a love for socialism — a model of government that has destroyed other countries.
Venezuelan columnist Laureano Márquez, in a piece published in the outlet Runrunes, declared that socialism is the root cause of that country’s current economic crisis.
“Dear Jim, I admire you a lot, but sometimes it seems that the inability of Hollywood stars to understand politics is directly proportional to their talent,” Márquez noted in his piece.
“I read that … you said: ‘We have to say yes to socialism, to the word [‘socialism’] and to everything.’ Perhaps for you, as for all humanity, the word ‘socialism’ sounds beautiful,” he went on.
The Venezuelan writer then explained that while many people define socialism as “the antithesis of selfishness, synonym of concern for others … support for the weakest and their needs, of seeking health and education for all,” in reality socialism today has “deep threats.”
Related: Millionaire Jim Carrey Declares ‘We Have to Say Yes to Socialism’
“[In] Venezuela, what we find is just that our regime is not — for God’s sake — the antithesis of selfishness,” he wrote Wednesday, as Fox News noted. “In Venezuela, dear Jim, from what I have just told you, there is no equitable distribution of wealth; wealth is concentrated, as rarely before in our history, in very few hands.”
Marquez also said that the residents of Venezuela are “at God’s mercy” — and that they are leaving their country “however way they can.”
These people do not have food, medication, or other essentials, he also noted.
“[This is] a tragedy that is compounded by the denial of a regime that claims that the population has never been better.”
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