Venezuela in Crisis: Too Much US intervention, Too Little Socialism

[Judi Lynn]

Venezuela in Crisis: Too Much US intervention, Too Little Socialism
July 14, 2016

by W. T. Whitney

Lisa Sullivan was worried: her neighbor was “up and waiting in line since 2 am, searching, unsuccessfully, to buy food for her large family.” The U. S. native living in Venezuela for decades is concerned too about Venezuela’s worsening economic and political crisis.

Most Venezuelans have experienced major social gains courtesy of the Bolivarian Revolution, which according to its leader Hugo Chávez, president from 1999 until 2013, was a socialist revolution. Oil exports fueled these gains and currently low oil prices are shaking the foundations of Venezuela’s social democracy.

Now as before U. S. intervention is on full display. The U. S. Senate in April passed a bill renewing economic sanctions against Venezuelan leaders originally imposed in 2014. The House of Representatives followed suit on July 6. President Obama will be signing the bill. In an executive order he declared Venezuela to be a threat to U. S. national security.

The State Department on July 7 alerted U.S. travelers to “violent crime” in Venezuela and warned that “political rallies and demonstrations can occur with little notice.” Venezuela’s government denounced the “illegitimate sanctions” as “imperial pretensions.” The U.S. government backed an unsuccessful coup against the Chávez government in 2002 and since has distributed tens of millions of dollars to opposition groups. After three years, it still withholds recognition of Nicolas Maduro as Venezuela’s president. These actions speak of a U. S. goal of regime change.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/14/venezuela-in-crisis-too-much-us-intervention-too-little-socialism/

[DetlefK]

1. I'm confused. Why doesn't this article about Venezuela talk about Venezuela's problems?

Why is there no mention of the world-record crime-rate in Caracas?

Why is there no mention of Venezuela's problematic currency-policy?

Why is there no mention that Venezuela makes it's money by selling oil and that the price of oil is too low?

Why is there no mention that Venezuela has failed to set up monetary reserves?

Why is there no mention of the drought that prevents the hydroelectric dams from working full-time?

Why is there no mention of Maduro refusing to do anything differently in terms of policy?

[seabeckind]

2. Cause and effect.

Separate those 2 factors and the confusion might be lessened.

Venezuela is a banana republic. It built its whole social plan based the value of a single commodity that suddenly lost its value.

Rather than making prudent use of a windfall to build a system that could exist effectively and efficiently if the income goes away,

they made the mistake of spending their bonus all at once on something that had no lasting value.

And of course the carpetbaggers were there ready and willing to loan them money based on that transient value of a single commodity.

And then.... well we know the and then because you just listed it.

My BIL took a one-time pension buyout and bought an SUV and put an addition on his house, even borrowed the extra he needed. Then a couple years later ....

[Igel]

3. Distraction.

Blaming outsiders that are held up to be hated is an easy way to circle the wagons and get the flag waving.

Russia had anti-communists, all of whom were relabeled as fascists when Hitler stopped recognizing the USSR's imperialist annexation of Poland and the Baltics; Venezuela has imperialists, even if it also has imperialist ambitions of its own; the US had communists, as it sponsored revolutions abroad.

If that "devil" Obama is responsible for your little Juan's lack of arepas and it's Kerry's fault you don't have Charmin for your precious butt, then Maduro isn't just absolved of responsibility, he's the closest thing you have to a gyro, as he speaks trooth to power.

[Al Carroll]

4. Actually it does mention about half those

It talks about the crisis as being caused half by incompetence, lazy reliance on a monoculture rather than self sufficiency from or over dependence on the market.
And the other half caused by old elites doing all they can to strangle their own nation so that they can return to power. The US certainly does not help by constant interference, and holding Venezuela up to human rights standards that Colombia, Honduras, and even Mexico don't have to worry about.
To pretend that GWB or Obama had nothing to do with any of this is either naive or blind. But if Maduro had played it smarter like Evo Morales for example he would not be in as much trouble, even with meddling from DC.