Posted on 08/01/2017 8:22:56 AM PDT by pgkdan
Venezuela is a woeful reminder that no country is so rich that it can’t be driven into the ground by revolutionary socialism.
People are now literally starving — about three-quarters of the population lost weight last year — in what once was the fourth-richest country in the world on a per capita basis. A country that has more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia is suffering shortages of basic supplies. Venezuela now totters on the brink of bankruptcy and civil war, in the national catastrophe known as the Bolivarian Revolution.
The phrase is the coinage of the late Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, succeeded by the current Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro. The Western Hemisphere’s answer to Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, Maduro has instituted an ongoing self-coup to make his country a one-party state.
The Chavezistas have worked from the typical communist playbook of romanticizing the masses while immiserating them. Runaway spending, price controls, nationalization of companies, corruption and the end of the rule of law — it’s been a master class in how to destroy an economy.
The result is a sharp, years-long recession, runaway inflation and unsustainable debt. The suffering of ordinary people is staggering, while the thieves and killers who are Chavezista officials have made off with hundreds of billions of dollars. At this rate — The Economist calls the country’s economic decline “the steepest in modern Latin American history” — there will be nothing left to steal.
Any government in a democratic country that failed this spectacularly would have been relegated to the dustbin of history long ago. Maduro is getting around this problem by ending Venezuela’s democracy. The Chavezistas slipped up a year or two by allowing real elections for the country’s National Assembly, which were swept by the opposition. They then undertook a war against the assembly, stripping it of its powers and culminating in a rigged vote this week to create a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution.
The goal of Maduro’s alleged constitutional reforms is to no longer have a constitution worthy of the name. All you need to know about the spirit of this exercise is Maduro’s threat to jail the opposition leaders who boycotted the vote (outside observers estimate less than 20 percent of the electorate participated, despite the regime’s absurd claim of a popular wave of support).
Denied the ordinary means of dissent via the press and elections, the opposition has taken to the streets. Already more than 100 people have been killed in clashes over the past several months. Worse is yet to come. Lacking legitimacy and representing only a fraction of the populace, the Maduro regime will rely on the final backstop of violent suppression. It is now the worst crisis in a major country in the Western Hemisphere since the heights of the Colombian civil war in the 1990s and 2000s.
There is no easy remedy to Venezuela’s agony. If meditation were the solution, the country never would have gotten to this pass. Endless negotiations between the government and the opposition have gone nowhere — the organized crime syndicate that has seized power under the banner of revolution knows it has no option but to retain its hold on power by any means necessary. The U.S. needs to use every economic and diplomatic lever to undermine the regime and build an international coalition against it.
We should impose more sanctions on specific officials and on the state-run oil company; we should advertise what we know about the details of how Chavezistas park their ill-gotten gains abroad; we should nudge our allies to further isolate the Venezuelan government by pulling ambassadors and breaking diplomatic relations. The hope is that with enough pressure, the regime will crack, and high-level officials will break with Maduro, weakening his position and making a negotiated restoration of democratic rule possible.
In the meantime, the Bolivarian Revolution is proceeding according to its sick logic — and there will be blood.
Focus only on the Cuban connection as for sanctions. Kill, or at least greatly mitigate that connection and quite likely both will fall.
This country has been on the same level as Iran when it comes to hating the US and Americans. We should let their chips fall where they may. They will still hate us regardless of the outcome.
The Venezuelans voted for their misery.....twice.
I agree.
And in California, the Democrats are raising the tax on gas by 40 cents a gallon.
Same thing happened in Argentina. It was one of the richest countries in the world til the socialists began their march ending with the Peronistas.
The author proposes economic sanctions.
Where has that strategy ever worked? Dictators and tyrants happily condemn their people to perpetually declining living standards and life expectancies just to stay in power. Look at Cuba and NORK for failed sanctions.
“But we are smarter than them, our style of socialism is fair and superior to theirs”.
No it’s not...Same principles same outcome.
Sounds eerily familiar....
‘zackly.
The Lord helps those that help themselves. The people of Venezuela citizens tolerated and accepted Chavez as a “Socialist”. Fact is, folks, there is no such thing as a free lunch, the Socialists go quickly from Socialist to Tyrant & Dictator with no effort at all!!! Venezuela, like Cuba has chosen its own bed to lie in and suffer for many years to come. Venezuela & Cuba are the “Black Holes” of South America & the Caribbean Basin. Americans beware...the Democrat Party is headed the way tyranny & dictatorship.
Yes, there is a way out for Venezuela & Cuba...but, it must come from the “neighbor” nations around these two lost nations, who will join together and rid both Cuba & Venezuela of the human scum and vermin that control them. Failing that needed action....the battle for Freedom and Democracy is lost!!! THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH. The government that controls your basic of survival, controls you, 100%. “SAD”.
Yet another data point on why universal suffrage is a miserable failure.
Lots of debts are going to be settled soon in Venezuela. After years of pillaging and plundering and destruction of business infrastructure, Venezuela has a long difficult climb out of the cesspool and will be ripe for new false prophets....where are penn, Moore, and glover-they endorsing maduro and his thugs? Wonder how many billions maduro has stashed up in the caymans?
Yep. But which Western countries are holding the criminal enterprise’s money for profit?
Kinda getting sick of that.
Like the investment bank that laundered money for cartels yet no one went to prison.
Investment banks have treated me great as an employee.
But that was WRONG.
One of the big problems is that the opposition keeps boycotting elections.
Sanctions and embargos are more nails in the coffin of a failed states people. Along with Cuba,NK and others, the US also sanctioned Iraq with zero effect to the regime and we still eventually invaded twice costing the lives of over 4000 soldiers....for nothing.
Some will hate America for voting Obama and helping Chavistas. Brazile’s Rousseff also helped with Castro prop the Chavistas at the expense of Brazilian infrastructure and economy
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