Socialism Succeeds Again: Starvation in Venezuela
Socialism/communism has killed more people than any other belief system in history. Now people are starving in Venezuela:
With delivery trucks under constant attack, the nation’s food is now transported under armed guard. Soldiers stand watch over bakeries. The police fire rubber bullets at desperate mobs storming grocery stores, pharmacies and butcher shops. A 4-year-old girl was shot to death as street gangs fought over food.
Venezuela is convulsing from hunger.
Hundreds of people here in the city of Cumaná, home to one of the region’s independence heroes, marched on a supermarket in recent days, screaming for food. They forced open a large metal gate and poured inside. They snatched water, flour, cornmeal, salt, sugar, potatoes, anything they could find, leaving behind only broken freezers and overturned shelves.
And they showed that even in a country with the largest oil reserves in the world, it is possible for people to riot because there is not enough food.
Vin Scully sums up my reaction:
Vin Scully has strong feelings on socialism pic.twitter.com/7XEnF56EOy
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) June 18, 2016
Anyway. 0 and 2.
Ding.
Patterico (86c8ed) — 6/20/2016 @ 7:31 amVenezuelans fully deserve what they are getting. They choose ingratitude, envy and hatred of those with more when they choose Chavez. Not let them eat cake. Maybe next time they choose differently.
With respect to the Left — it is evil. No shocker here. This is why I get confused over the Trump Hillary discussion. It shows to me people are ignorant of the Left.
Rodney King's Spirit (e2dd8e) — 6/20/2016 @ 8:14 amThe saddest thing is that even if the country came to its senses, embraced the free market, returned nationalized property to its owners, and disavowed socialism forever, it would still take 20 years for Venezuela to dig itself back out of the hole it’s put itself in.
matt d (d4aa6f) — 6/20/2016 @ 9:00 amVin Scully is the bomb.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 6/20/2016 @ 9:04 amI’d long heard that he is a conservative.
No doubt the Obama Administration will start insisting that it is our moral duty to take in 300,000 Venezuelan refugees, though for a country of over 30 million people that would barely but a dent in the massive problem they face.
JVW (eabb2a) — 6/20/2016 @ 9:08 amVenezuela’s crisis just shows that all Venezuelans need to be brought to the United States and given citizenship.
Duh.
Dejectedhead (787359) — 6/20/2016 @ 9:08 am3.The saddest thing is that even if the country came to its senses, embraced the free market, returned nationalized property to its owners, and disavowed socialism forever, it would still take 20 years for the United States to dig itself back out of the hole it’s put itself in.
You’re welcome, matt d.
Rev. Hoagie® (734193) — 6/20/2016 @ 9:12 amJVW,
You’d think that Argentina might have room for Venezuelan refugees in their left wing paradise. Or Cuba. Or did someone yell out, “How ’bout Bolivia!?” (LOL)
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 6/20/2016 @ 9:14 amGet ready for the democrats to begin wailing about how Venezuela is too big to fail. I can almost feel my pockets being picked by democrats. For the children, of course.
Rev. Hoagie® (734193) — 6/20/2016 @ 9:17 amIn case you don’t know, two of our closest allies are much more socialistic than we are. Those two happen to be both England and Israel. But I guess that’s perfectly fine.
And keep trying to conflate communism with socialism. It’s cute.
Tillman (a95660) — 6/20/2016 @ 9:34 amand venezuela is funding spain’s syriza counterpart, ‘yes we can” I’m not kidding,
narciso (732bc0) — 6/20/2016 @ 9:42 amthe venezuela losers can’t even conflate rice with beans
so not cute
happyfeet (a037ad) — 6/20/2016 @ 9:49 amThat’s Perry, right?
You reap what you sow. May all socialists get their just desserts, but stop trying to take us capitalists down with you.
njrob (106463) — 6/20/2016 @ 10:13 am4. – He’s aged out of fair fight consideration, but could you imagine the riot if a he got caught on a live feed during a Dodger home game disparaging Messicans.
urbanleftbehind (5eecdb) — 6/20/2016 @ 10:21 am#10 Tillman,
Two of our closest allies (England, Israel) are more socialist than we are.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 6/20/2016 @ 10:45 amSo what?
What difference does that make? Are you suggesting we shouldn’t be allies with any nation that is more left-of-center than we are?
right because national petroleum, is a thing, they even nationalized the supermarkets down there,
narciso (732bc0) — 6/20/2016 @ 10:51 amchina rulz failmerica droolz
happyfeet (a037ad) — 6/20/2016 @ 11:06 am#15 Cruz Supporter – If Socialism is the absolute evil that many want to say it is, then our closest allies should not be socialist(ic), right? Or, we have to accept that socialism isn’t as bad as we thought it was in the first place.
Here is what should be a concern to us (and yes, I said “us”). Most millennials do not support capitalism. That was shocking to me. It would help if companies would refrain from pulling stunts like what happened a few years ago – selling us dog food that kills our dogs! (On the other hand, there are a lot of great, ethical companies out there too of course, I know.)
Tillman (a95660) — 6/20/2016 @ 11:11 amTillman,
You’re amusingly detached from reality.
Our nation maintains foreign alliances based on various factors, but essentially, foreign policy is predicated upon a nation’s self-interest. Foreign alliances are more than just a situation where you join a Facebook page with other people who share your passion for listening to Motley Crue, or crocheting, or building model airplanes.
Tillman, you really must have an empty life if you don’t have friends whose politics are different than yours.
By the way, since England and Israel are allies with us, shouldn’t that suggest to them that free market capitalism is the way and the light?
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 6/20/2016 @ 11:30 amWhy would he do that? Has Mexico turned far let socialist or communist? Or is it now racist to defame a nations politics?
Rev. Hoagie® (734193) — 6/20/2016 @ 11:43 amCruz Supporter, it’s simple. Not long ago, well, okay, long ago, Nixon had the nerve to go talk to Communist China. There was a lot of outrage, and gnashing of teeth, especially from the right. That was just for him going over there and talking to them – not for making them one of our closest allies. So, if we’re close allies with a country, we must not abhor their state’s type of government. Therefore, socialism (not communism!) isn’t all bad, to us. Learn some history.
Tillman (a95660) — 6/20/2016 @ 11:44 amThis kind of thing is even worse than the usual socialism. It didn’t happen in the Soviet Union (except when Stalin was deliberately starving peasants, amd maybe also for 3 years undr Lenin, at which point he iniaitiated the “New Economic Policy” and let Herbert Hoover feed the people) and it didn’t happen in Cuba.
This is incompetence loaded up on top of socialism – a very rigorous imposing of impossible conditions on business. It’s like Nicholas Maduro doesn’t expect what’s happening to happen and instead he demonizes business. He doesn’t want to give an inch to the opposition.
Sammy Finkelman (643dcd) — 6/20/2016 @ 11:50 amIt’s not “cute”, it’s a human tragedy. Socialism is the last step toward communism according to the communists so they are only different in degree. Once Venezuela goes total commie it too can murder people in gulags like Cuba and other “pure” communists do. Wont you think that’s “cute” Tillman?
Rev. Hoagie® (734193) — 6/20/2016 @ 11:50 amTillman,
Put down the crack pipe.
It’s destructive, no matter what your dealer tells you otherwise.
Look, we know you hate Israel.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 6/20/2016 @ 11:51 amYou don’t have to be a weasel and try to assert some obtuse argument for why you want the USA to drop Israel as an ally.
Just admit the truth, and be transparent about it, buddy boy. You’ll feel better once you do.
We need neither abhor nor adopt their policies. Why would we? Where do you get that idea? It’s you who “conflate” allies with trading partners. They are not necessarily the same thing.
Rev. Hoagie® (734193) — 6/20/2016 @ 11:55 amTillman,
Who says we must embrace our allies’ domestic policies?
WTF does that have to do with anything?
Have you ever had a work colleague who had different politics than you? Did you quit your job because of it?
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 6/20/2016 @ 12:06 pmJesus Christ, the left wingers they send us these days….(LOL)
This was the main front page story in the New York Times today. The headline on the printed page is:
Nicholas Maduro is trying to prevent a recall vote. And all he does is demonize business owners and the opposition.
From the article:
Sammy Finkelman (643dcd) — 6/20/2016 @ 12:09 pm20. It is not all racist to disparage a country’s existing economic system, particularly one that has derived from a small but forcefull chain of strong men who have rooted their misery from Russia to “Republican” Spain to Cuba and to Meso and South America. But on some level, you may think that Scully looks down on the crowds and gets wistful with the many years of seeing incidents like the EMT from the Bay Area and seeing maybe muffin-topped heavily tatooed ex-cholas where it once was classic SoCal pulchritude as far as the eye could see. Like I say it would have to be a mike that was thought to have been turned off.
urbanleftbehind (5eecdb) — 6/20/2016 @ 12:50 pmHey Sammy, your post in 27 disagrees with your post in 22 regarding Cuba.
Socialism destroys and impoverishes. That is all.
njrob (106463) — 6/20/2016 @ 3:09 pm29. njrob (106463) — 6/20/2016 @ 3:09 pm
There’s rationing in Cuba, but there’s not near total unavailability of food.
Number 22 says this kind of thing what’s happening in Venezuela didn’t happen in Cuba – and it didn’t. Number 27 quotes critics as saying that putting food distribution in the hands of a group of citizen brigades loyal to leftists is reminiscent of food rationing in Cuba.
However, what’s happening now is even worse than rationing. A reporter for the New York Times doesn’t have any trouble finding people being very short on food, and willing to be quoted (it’s not quite a totalitarian state there) Not all members of a family can get to eat. Many people, in the middle of the day, say they didn’t eat yet today.
A survey by Simón Bolívar University found that 87 percent of the people in Venezuela do not have (enough) money to buy enough food. A group associated with the Venezuelan Teachers Federation, Center for Documentation and Social Analysis, says that 72 percent of monthly wages are now being spent just to buy food (are they, or were, loyal to Chavez? Is their recommendation raising wages?)
In April, it found that a family would need the equivalent of 16 minimum-wage salaries to properly feed itself.
Sammy Finkelman (7a22e4) — 6/20/2016 @ 4:46 pmI Don’t cry for you Venezuela. You voted for exactly what you are getting.
f1guyus (5a4596) — 6/20/2016 @ 6:28 pmVin Scully’s comment was printed today on page A11 (op-ed page) of the Wall Street Journal.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/notable-quotable-vin-scully-on-socialism-1466465176
I didn’t know this about Hugo Chavez’s daughter. It seems like a lot of money was put in her name. (She’s not the oldest daughter)
Here is a story about Hugo Chavez’ daughter.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3192933/Hugo-Chavez-s-ambassador-daughter-Venezuela-s-richest-woman-according-new-report.html
Sammy Finkelman (643dcd) — 6/21/2016 @ 3:03 pmThe New York Times had an editorial about this today. It seems they have decided that the remedy is for the Organization of American States to say something. They are complaining that they are not.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/21/opinion/standing-up-for-democracy-in-venezuela.html
It says countries are divided into 3 categories:
It says also that
There is notword in the editorial about the United States. I guess that the United States doing something or saying somnething would be imperialism. They imply, but don’t say, that Venezuela should be expelled from the OAS.
The sole refeernce to the United States is this:
The United States ismentioned last,but maybe that’s alphabetical order.
Sammy Finkelman (643dcd) — 6/21/2016 @ 3:11 pmthe old soviet era humor magazine, had a joke that is communism came to egypt, in 50 years they’d run out of sand, that is the nature of state controlled economies,
narciso (732bc0) — 6/21/2016 @ 3:13 pmOne of the old Soviet era jokes was about a guy who finally piled up enough Rubles to buy a Lada.
Dealer: Great comrade. Your car will be delivered in ten years.
Comrade: Morning or afternoon?
Dealer: What difference does it make? It’s ten years.
Comrade: Yes but it’s the same day the plumber is coming.
Steve57 (ecac13) — 6/22/2016 @ 11:53 am