Venezuela. / Chavez / Moduro

Makes change from a US apologist lemon. Although the most objective and balanced assessments have been from those you describe as "Moduro apologists". So much more adult than "a nasty man did it"

.........and yet another Maduro apologist hits the thread.Left wing of course, naturally.

What has happened in Venezuela isn't unusual. Any country that tries to follow a socialist set of principles will be in line for de-stabilisation.

And, in my opinion, it's no coincidence that Venezuela is the second largest oil producer in the world - and that the US was enraged when Chavez nationalised Venezuela's oil. A familiar story isn't it.

Of course, there are many views about what has caused the terrible situation in Venezuela. The accounts which receive the most media attention are those which suggest chaos is the natural outcome of following a socialist agenda. Accounts which provide a very different perspective are rarely seen in the mainstream media. Here, if anybody can be bothered to read them are some different accounts, some not uncritical of Maduro but also setting out the background to the current situation.

theconversation.com/how-donald-trump-could-make-venezuelas-crisis-dramatically-worse-103035 - an extract:

"The US’s hawkish turn is not without precedent. The US has been at odds with Venezuela since the early 2000s, when Hugo Chávez’s socialist policies threatened US economic interests and undercut Washington’s political clout in Latin America. Chávez aimed to use the country’s oil wealth to create new institutions and integration schemes outside the US orbit, and his efforts won support from other leftist governments in the region.

"In 2002, George W Bush’s administration supported a brief coup against Chávez. When Chávez was returned to power, the opposition sought to destabilise the country’s state-owned oil producer, PDVSA."

www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/08/juan-guaido-the-man-who-would-be-president-of-venezuela-doesnt-have-a-constitutional-leg-to-stand-on/

www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/medicines-supplies-grounded-u-s-after-venezuela-tags-them-war-n767346

" But recently, the Venezuelan government banned the import of a series of items they deem "war material." Government officials accuse the opposition in Venezuela of using international courier services to send products to equip protesters in the two months of almost daily clashes with security forces.

Some of the products banned are for protection like gas masks helmets, and bulletproof vests. But they have also banned medical products such as first aid kits, eye drops, antacids, gauze, surgical tape, and burn cream, among others."

Now who is dealing in smearing by inuendo? What is your evidence that they didn't.

Oh! of course they did M0nica at least while anybody was watching!
No one has yet explained to me why the US refused to allow medical supplies legitimately purchased by Venezuela to be exported there.
Maduro is a nightmare but he has only survived because the US have actively intervened to cause a humanitarian crisis in the hope that they can be seen as the rescuers. So while he may be using starvation as a weapon the US are using aid as theirs. They are both despicable but some seem only able to condemn one party.

But the British people were not starving and he was not constantly surrounded by well fed generals politicians etc etc. Most of them were of the same average build as the average person.

It might be remembered that the Royal Family had ration books and lived on the same rations the rest of us did. I believe the king himself painted the red lins on the baths to make sure that they too only had 5(?) inchs of water in the bath.

He is using food as a weapon to subdue anyone who opposes him trisher - or starving them to death.

Starvation is a weapon of war.

M0nica during WW2 when the population made potato pie and a tin of spam was a treat Winston Churchill remained obese, smoked imported cigars and drank imported brandy. Leaders have always looked after them selves. Maduro is the same as many others.
Sanctions have killed people.

I will believe that the problems in Venezuela are caused by outside forces when Maduro and all those around him are as thin as ordinary Venezuelans.

If the government can make sure that they and, presumably their families , are very well fed, I could say, unhealthily well fed, then sanctions are not the cause of the majority of Venezuelans being unhealthily undernourished.

Jalima1108 of course it's very wrong. But it was equally wrong to refuse to supply medicines and supplies that had been bought by Venezuela. The aid would not have been needed if the sanctions hadn't been enacted. The terrible thing about this is that two potentially rich countries have between them caused the situation where ordinary people are starving and the sick are dying. But it is the fault of both countries not of just one and it is interesting that the US sanctions were kept so quiet and are so difficult to uncover whereas the aid convoys are being so publicised. It's an attempt to win hearts and minds. Unfortunately I believe it will not completely work and will simply lead to more conflict and longer suffering.

Whatever the rights or wrongs, sanctions etc, the news this evening showed aid lorries being refused entry, road blocks and soldiers with guns to prevent food and essential supplies coming in.
What aid is allowed in is only allocated to Maduro's supporters - anyone who does not support him gets no food. Women who have received food were in the streets saying how wrong this is.

No I haven't POGS But you can read about sanctions in other places www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/venezuela-us-sanctions-united-nations-oil-pdvsa-a8748201.html

trisher

You have put links up to venezuelanalysis and Counter Punch .

Have you looked into their background?

www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/26/us-venezuela-sanctions-nicolas-maduro

" The United States has imposed new sanctions on 13 senior Venezuelan officials, turning up the heat on the beleaguered government of Nicolás Maduro as opposition activists launched a 48-hour strike in protest against an upcoming vote they say will mark the end of democracy.

The sanctions unveiled on Wednesday targeted current and former government officials, high-ranking military officers, and managers of the state oil company known as PDVSA for alleged human rights abuses, undermining democracy and corruption.

But they were also part of an international effort to pressure Maduro to cancel this Sunday’s election to choose members of a new body to rewrite Venezuela’s constitution."
--

www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-venezuela/u-s-sanctions-venezuela-officials-trump-slams-maduro-idUSKCN1M51WC

The USA continued to buy oil from Venezuela , it was a Sanction against individuals and their business dealings .

As of Jan 2019 the US Sanction is against the Nationalised oil company.

POGS - to keep the Socialist / Moduro dream alive and continue their lionising of a failed Dictator as we see and hear all too often from the far left

M0nica - All these countries then became one party states, with a government that crushed all opposition, even internal opposition from those who had different ideas on how to make their respective countries fully socialist

Excellent comments regarding corrupt, socialist Venezuela, but both would be equally at home on the Labour Deselection thread that is running at the moment. Our very own far left party seems intent on crushing any moderate dissent within it, and we could see the all-powerful Momentum as Corbyn's army - ensuring he is and will remain the far left-figurehead for socialist revolution.

I know we are a long way removed from the dreadful Venezuelan situation but the seeds of socialist control are being planted in our only viable opposition party, whilst MPs critical of Corbyn's leadership and Momentum's stance are being weeded out. There is a parallel.

Extreme left wing people will always praise countries like Venezuela it doesn’t matter how corrupt the left wing dictator there actually is, although Corbyn is now keeping very quiet on the matter.

Amy? Any!

Agreed POGS amy line at all......particularly if they can have a go at other countries like the US.

Nor should there be any apologists for the US sanctions, but it seems that many are in denial about them or simply don't know the true extent of them. Question- is it OK to stop exports of medicines that a country has paid for and then to provide limited aid for free? And why would you do such a thing?

www.nytimes.com/2016/05/16/world/americas/dying-infants-and-no-medicine-inside-venezuelas-failing-hospitals.html

www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/19/venezuela-crisis-hospitals-shortages-barcelona-caracas

If you look at the dates of the above you will note 2016.

Yet the ' Apologists ' have never accepted the reality but continue to put forward any line rather than accept the truth
and to keep the Socialist / Moduro dream alive and continue their lionising of a failed Dictator as we see and hear all too often from the far left.

No, there shouldn’t POGS but some apologists get bogged down in semantics about ‘socialist country’ or not a truly socialist country, etc instead of focusing on the real situation on the ground.

On thursday Moduro ' BLOCKED ' aid getting into Venezuela from Columbia when 2 semi-trailers loaded with boxed emergency food and medicine rolled into the Colombian border city of Cucút.

Would Moduro have blocked aid from anywhere other than from the USA? Maybe , who knows?

In the mean time children and babies are dying from contaminated food and water. 14 have died in Barcelona Venezuela because of lack of medicines .

www.google.com/search?q=barcelona+venezuela+children+dying&oq=barcelona+venezuela+children+dying&aqs=chrome..69i57.18254j0j8&client=tablet-unknown&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

There should be no ' Apologists for Moduro ' .

Most revolutions started in countries which were very underdeveloped and several - USSR, Cuba, China - ensured much more egalitarian societies with no-one now starving, illiterate or without access to medical treatment.

grannypauline, now we are getting to the nitty gritty. We are now agreed that the three countries you mention have genuinely tried to develop socialist countries, but they all failed, why?

1) One of the first things that has bothered me is that they all started with revolutions, nobody voted them in. Why?

2) All these countries then became one party states, with a government that crushed all opposition, even internal opposition from those who had different ideas on how to make their respective countries fully socialist. In other words they were the antithesis of democratic. Why?

3) All these countries, eventually failed and had to become mixed economies because they became economically and technologically backward (except in the military technology) field. I have described why this happens, in a post on p5 of this thread. It should be read again in conjunction with this thread. Why did these attempts at true socialism fail economically?

4) I admit this is a frivolity, but how would school fetes, car boot sales, jumble sales, craft fairs, or my personal hobby going round village hall auction sales and picking up trivia to sell on from a tent at antique fairs and other micro business/hobbies where money changes hands be handled in this socialist state. They would all obviously have to be state owned and managed, otherwise the socialist state would not be socialist anymore, but a mixed economy. How could this be done?

Yes, based on economic control of the majority of the means of production.

But the politics is in the getting there and in the insistence on bottom up democratic control afterwards!