It won’t be long now. Socialism always ends in bulldozers and death-squads.
Meanwhile, political prisoners continued to be arrested. In January, Mr. Maduro established a new “anti-coup commando” to round up political dissidents accused of treason. The group has taken aim at members of the opposition, arresting many, including a city councilman from central Venezuela and a deputy lawmaker in the National Assembly.
h/t maz2
So much for … “the people”. Useful idiots … that’s all. Useful idiots.
Maduro is building a Latin American North Korea.
The USSR lasted like 80 years. I think Venezuela will starve, and suffer, for decades longer than anyone thinks it will. Furthermore, looking back at history and observing the 100% perfect rate of failure that socialism has, all of Venezuela’s neighbors will follow it down the drain.
How did the New York Times run an entire article on Venezuela’s problems without once mentioning the price of oil? Must be fake news.
Is Sean Penn down there now getting ready to assume office?
The New York Times? All the news “that’s fit” on page 1, apologies and corrections on page 37?
The BBC is reporting that the Venezuelan Supreme Court has reversed its decision: (but misses the important detail…)
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-39468045
For news from people that actually have a stake in Venezuela, there’s always Caracas Chronicles, where they explain the concept of “follow the money” (or bond repayment schedule in this example) … Note the Supreme Court has not withdrawn one important aspect of its recent directive:
https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2017/04/01/panic-streets-vennyland/
“And, this morning —surprise!— the Tribunal withdrew the most incendiary aspects of Article 156 granting itself all of the Assembly’s powers but kept the provisions allowing the president to unilaterally alter the Hydrocarbons Law even though he has no enabling powers to do so.”
and, “”Worst. April”s Fools. Ever.”
Meanwhile, the Venezuelan exchange rate has tanked 20% over the past few days:
https://dolartoday.com
The little detail of why would the Maduro gov’t reverse this ruling… (it is the Maduro gov’t that has done this, not really the Supreme Court as they simply act to fellate the President here…)
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-bonds-idUSKBN173326
And Trump is attacking the freedom caucus. I predicted this.
We have Justin. Loves the Castro’s
Alberta has Rachel.
Calgary has Nenshi.
This cancer is world wide and we are not immune.
Remind me again why Pinochet is supposed to be a bad guy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDgrJHtzdBc
He’s the “bad guy” because the left writes the news. And they say it’s so.
What I’m truly surprised at is that with all the criminal gangs in Mexico not a single one hasn’t looked at what’s going on in Venezula and decided it wants to go legit and take over a country that can grow drug crops and has a natural resource that people all over the 1st and 2nd World need to power their day to day life. Criminals are truly stupid. If you’ve got the firepower and the balls…all you’ve got to do is promise the “peasants” that they’ll have running water, toilet paper and a chance to feed themselves and their kids.
Do you really think that Mexicans and Venezuelans would get along?
Especially criminal gangs like the Mexican Cartels and the Venezuelan Chavistas?
The cartels cannot even get along with their fellow Mexicans. At their heart, they are ruthless, money hungry, tribalistic gangs based on their place of birth. These are not intelligent people with vision. They are criminals.
I hate to see the Venezuelans suffer, but they voted for Chavez and free shtuff. They need to decide their own lives. Even if it is lots of dead babies and children because they cannot afford basics like food and medicine. We Gringoes need to stay out.
For the people that would amount to a Hobbes choice or no choice at all; starved to death by commie bastards or shot by ruthless thugs.
You nailed it.
Ivbinconned, “This cancer is world wide and we are not immune.”, exactly.
The western world has been stable, prosperous, creative and peaceful because of three principles/understandings.
Like a three legged stool it has brought about riches and a standard of living unequaled any where else on the planet. Stability promotes wealth creation!
The three important legs for the stool are Faith, Law, and Property Rights.
Whittle away at any one of these supports and things will crumble.
No one will obey law without the moral code that comes from a faith based culture and history. This is under attack!
And people without property rights will not be creative or productive.
This too is being eroded by governments hunger for control.
Please Brad. Listen to the property rights advocates and owners as you tinker with the Saskatchewan “Property and Development Act” and less to the consultants government employees.
“I hate to see the Venezuelans suffer, but they voted for Chavez and free shtuff. ”
Democracy – The God That Failed. Yes I will be happy when those who voted for communism hunt each others’ children for food. But it did not have to be that way. In each of those shitholes there is always a 15-20% of people worthy of a right wing dictatorship. They prosper under it and when given a chance become a valuable allies of The Occident.
Giving up colonization, giving up gunboat diplomacy, giving up support for our sons of bitches have been a crime against humanity that turned expensive over time. And there precious little humanity left in those places. Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua, more recently Egypt are all examples of what happens when the west backs down.
“We Gringoes need to stay out.”
It is probably too late to do anything now, but if we still can find a Pinochet there, we should bankroll him and send in operatives to help him out.
Seems appropriate here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFrBYI3Ntro
captcha: private south
I can’t think of anything more likely to inoculate Venezuela’s neighbours against that sort of folly than having front row seats at the Venezuelan disaster. (But there are no guarantees.)
I blame Trump.
ivbinconned,
You left out one important leg of the stool.
No One Will Obey Stupid Laws.
=========
Prohibition comes to mind. Which one? Well take your pick.
Coffee
Alcohol
Drugs
There may be others.
Venezuela used to have a bi-cameral federal parliament. Just like our NDP here want to do, their socialists got rid of the upper house. It is easier to control one legislature than two.
Here is how these things work.
The socialist/fascist ruling class has the power, pretty much to do anything that pleases them. If it happen to mean death to some, well, what the hell, they can do it with a snap of two fingers.
However unlikely or gross it may seem to you, they will kill people when they are cornered.
The people can take over with a lot of victims (real, actual victims, not snowflakes), if they are willing to go for it.
That still would not guarantee anything resembling a government.
You see, the socialists/fascist so destroyed the natural moral code that there will be nobody to know.
They crush the spirit of people and then try to rebuild it with brainwashing and diktat.
Yeah, Alberta is in for some excitement.
In reading the first paragraph, I thought it was an article on Alberta industry.
It has been so since October 1917.
it’s going to get violent. lots of violence. followed by a napoleon or hitler type ‘restoring order’.
do tell, what recourse will there be when this happens in USA? Canuckistan? UK? etc?
all in the interests of ‘national security’. doesn’t matter if it’s the extreme right or extreme left; at that point the ONLY difference is ‘who’s name is on the property title’? a multi-billionaire or the state. makes no difference. what’s the point of ‘property rights’ when only 0.01% own anything? and the new factor in all this is all that snooping technology that obuma made use of. much easier to track the movements and intentions of any budding opposition. this has been covered already in the movies, except in the real world we don’t get the ‘happy ending’ without immense bloodshed and no guarantees.
then the antichrist shows up and everything is hoity toity once again.
There’s something quite wrong with Spanish political culture. It just doesn’t produce stable, prosperous democratic societies in the long run. They seem to run through a cycle something like this:
1. Ineffective and corrupt democracy that tends towards excessive crime and poverty,
2. A strongman / populist figure emerges who promises to “fight for the people”,
3. The poor flock to him (or her), and install said figure in power,
4. Said figure proceeds to take a wrecking ball to the country while fleecing it for all its worth,
5. Followed by some kind of coup / dictatorship / military junta,
6. Then after many years a return to some kind of ineffective and corrupt democracy,
7. Goto step 1.
South America, for all its natural resources, has never produced a country that is any better than second-rate, and even those don’t seem to stay that way for all that long before sinking back into the cycle.
Venezuela is well into step 4/5 now.