Posted on 08/09/2016 2:29:40 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Alvaro Ybarra Zavala puts it bluntly: “Venezuela has become hell.”
The photographer had just returned from one of his latest trips to the South American nation when he talked to TIME, and he was visibly affected by the chaos he had witnessed there. “There’s a complete collapse of society,” he said.
Once an example for the continent, Venezuela is now a country in freefall. “It’s hard to find food, there’s no medicine,” said Ybarra Zavala. “If you have to have surgery, you need to bring everything with you: the bandages, the gloves, everything. There are no anesthetics.”
Ybarra Zavala was on assignment for TIME last month, chronicling the country’s breakdown. His photographs show daily street protests that are often violently repressed, empty shelves in deserted grocery stores and people lining up, sometimes for entire days, for gas. “No one believes anymore in the army, in the police, in the system,” said Ybarra Zavala.
The photographer - who’s worked in Iraq, Afghanistan and Colombia - said Venezuela is the “hardest place I’ve worked in”.
The collapse, set in motion by Hugo Chavez’s 14-year reign, now seems irreversible, he adds: “For the last four years, Venezuela has been in constant crisis and it never blew up. But now, I’m very scared of how it will end. I think Venezuela crossed the line of no return. I’m worried what will happen next.”
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
Thank you for the ping, Publius. Much appreciated. I was going to say, but on thinking it, it sounded too dismissive and you might think it rude, that I didn’t need to read the article. I thought you might interpret my comment negatively, as though I didn’t want to be pinged.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
But that was my first thought: I don’t even need to read it. I am not in the least bit curious. As other posters have said, it isn’t like we haven’t seen this kind of thing over and over and over again. We have read it in Atlas Shrugged. We have seen it in country over country throughout history. The power and money-hungry people in charge oppress people and appropriate more and more of the country’s wealth while suppressing the ability of people to make more via government intrusion, and piss away the stuff that they steal.
And still-STILL we get absolute IMBECILES world-wide who see this as though it just happened for the first time.
And the first thing out of their mouths is always: “They did it wrong.”
Unbelievable. “They did it wrong.”
Like so many liberal ideas, they build the edifice of their vision on a foundation of faulty premises, and the faulty premise of this is that it can be done at all. So we end up arguing with them about the details “They should have had a better system of setting and communicating prices”, “They made a mistake in analyzing the data”, or “The planning of projects was faulty”.
At this point, in the vision of what should happen, someone slaps them hard across the face and says: “Listen up. Socialism doesn’t work. It can’t work. It is corrupt from the inception, it is an a engine of graft and abuse with no redeeming aspects. It is MADE, no, DESIGNED to eat itself, but ONLY after eating everything and everyone else. Because when you determine what is fair compensation, there is always someone else to whom it isn’t fair. When a person determines how much another person should be able to earn, that person will always want more, and someone else is going to be jealous and envious because that person has MORE than they do. If you say you will give them more, they will WANT more.”
And then we snap back to reality, and the Leftist is still bleating that socialism is a good idea that is waiting for the right person...
If I sound angry, I am. We didn’t see this coming years or decades ago, we’ve seen it our whole life, it is stupid, cruel, and completely unnecessary. Good luck replacing that shattered hip with no anesthetic. Or being hungry enough to boil a leather shoe or belt and try to eat it. One thing I have learned from history, is that when people get hungry enough, they will try to eat nearly anything. Anything. From belts and shoes to other people.
And that, folks, is the final destination of socialism. Looking at an old boot, and wondering if there is anything nutritionally that can be gotten from it.
THAT is the essence of what socialism eventually comes to.
That picture says it all.
The best and brightest have found their way out of Venezuela over the past few decades (my wife worked with one 20+ years ago, who got out when the family saw the writing on the wall back then); the Creoles (Spanish-descended Latinos), as in Cuba, have largely abandoned the former colony to the people who lived there before as well as the descendants of the slaves brought over a century and a half ago. Spain is usually very accommodating in taking these people in when they can prove Spanish descent; better than importing Arabs or Incas...
U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
You’re right, the price collapse was huge, but nationalizing everything a few years earlier was also huge. They ran off every oil company and every supplier that was helping them pay for the welfare and put the welfare people in charge. Brilliant. Their revenues were falling before the price collapse, and expenses were rising. The perfect storm.
This is why American communists need to be neutralized with extreme prejudice, before they get so strong that they cannot be rooted out.
This election will be the last peaceful attempt to destroy these MF’s.
Trump or all bets are off.
Exactly right on all points!
No matter who wins in Nov., we’re going to see some SHTF.
Those who support socialist /liberals /progressives/ Marxists/ communists /democrats (but I repeat myself), may not like living on their knees, but they obviously love the taste.
It matters not whether one feels sorry for them. You can’t fix stupid.
LMAO.
Ahhh, the rewards of socialism.
When it arrives for America, it will be much worse. The un-collapsed world can aid Venezuela. When collapse arrives here, there will be no source for aid and utter chaos will rule the times.
Coming to a country near you. Really.
what is the alternative?...seriously..
>>Never put all your eggs in one basket.<<
Now, if only there were eggs. And, what’s a basket?
Next comes revolution.
communism is and always has been about enriching certain people under the pretense of "spreading the wealth"....
the wealth is spread to the govt hackies....
A constitutional Republic. BUT, if the sovereigns allow an oligarchy to push the law aside and ignore the Constitutional directions, then it is no longer a Constitutional Republic, kind of where America is now, under the criminal enterprise in power.
Saudi did not collapse with falling oil revenues. They did not collapse because they are not socialists. It should be noted that Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world.
The other is that you need to keep something available for confiscation.
There are a number of plants that will not kill you but will make you extremely uncomfortable if eaten.
Keeping some of these on hand can be highly useful.
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