This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Hugo Chavez

  • Fleeing Communism…again

    Reuters grudgingly reports that Venezuelans are fleeing the latest version of Communism to Colombia. An eight-mile-long line forms at the border crossing;

    “It’s migrate and give it a try or die of hunger there. Those are the only two options,” said Yeraldine Murillo, 27, who left her six-year-old son behind in the Venezuelan city of Maracaibo, some 56 miles (90 km) across the border.

    “There, people eat from the trash. Here, people are happy just to eat,” said Murillo, who hopes to find work in Colombia’s capital Bogota and send for her son.

    The exodus from Venezuela – on a scale echoing the departure of Myanmar’s Rohingya people to Bangladesh – is stirring alarm in Colombia. A weary migration official said as many as 2,000 Venezuelans enter Colombia legally through Paraguachon each day, up from around 1,200 late last year.

    Colombian government officials estimate 4000 immigrants cross the 1300-mile jungle frontier illegally everyday.

    Luckily, for the Castros, there was 90 miles of ocean that blocked migration from that island. But that didn’t stop 14,000 from making their way to the US in the first two years of Communism in Cuba. The Germans built an 866-mile-long wall from the Baltic Sea to Czechoslovakia to stem the migration to the West. The North Koreans have their minefields.

    Mechanic Luis Arellano and his children were among the lucky ones who found beds at a shelter in Maicao run by the Catholic diocese with help from the U.N. refugee agency. The 58-year-old said his children’s tears of hunger drove him to flee Venezuela.

    “It was 8 p.m. and they were asking for lunch and dinner and I had nothing to give them,” he said, spooning rice into his 7-year-old daughter’s mouth.

    “This isn’t the size they should be,” Arellano said, raising his children’s spindly arms.

    Food has been weaponized by the Communists since Stalin used it against the Kulaks in the Soviet Union and Mao used it in his Great Leap Forward and now Maduro in his Bolivarian Republic.

  • Meanwhile, in Venezuela

    The other day, the US slapped Venezuela with more sanctions after the failed state held a questionable legislature election, adding President Nicolas Maduro to the list of “prohibited persons” with whom US citizens are forbidden to trade. From The Guardian;

    “Yesterday’s illegitimate elections confirm that Maduro is a dictator who disregards the will of the Venezuelan people,” said treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin. “By sanctioning Maduro, the United States makes clear our opposition to the policies of his regime and our support for the people of Venezuela who seek to return their country to a full and prosperous democracy.”

    Acording to Reuters, the US is still considering broader sanctions against Venezuela’s oil industry, which could prove devastating for a country which is already in a state of economic free fall.

    Maduro opposition boycotted the election, ensuring their loss at the polls. According to the New York Times, the software company that set up the process for the election charges that the voting process was “manipulated”;

    “We know, without any doubt, that the turnout of the recent election for a National Constituent Assembly was manipulated,” the company, Smartmatic, said in a statement.

    The vote was part of an ambitious plan by the government to consolidate power. President Nicolás Maduro instructed Venezuelans to select from a list of trusted allies of the governing party — including his wife — who will rewrite the nation’s Constitution and rule Venezuela with virtually unlimited authority until they finish their work.

    Voters were not given the option of rejecting the plan. Venezuela’s new governing body, known as the constituent assembly, will soon take charge of the country with the power to dismiss any branch of government, including the opposition-controlled legislature.

    CNN reports that after the election, opposition leaders were rounded up;

    In the wake of the result, two opposition leaders — Leopoldo Lopez and Antonio Ledezma — were detained, sparking condemnation from the United States and international organizations.

    Not surprisingly, international labor movements support the new government, according to Australia’s News;

    At a July 26 meeting of the Victorian branch of the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union, Australia’s third-largest and most powerful union, members resolved to “pledge our support with the people of Venezuela and their Bolivarian Revolution Socialist Government”.

    “This meeting notes the Venezuelan government is a democratically elected government and we reject the intervention of the US and other capitalist powers in Venezuela,” the resolution said.

    “We call on the Australian labour movement to express solidarity with workers in Venezuela and against fascist and violent gangs. We call on the Australian government to dissociate itself with the US intervention and to work towards a peaceful resolution to this crisis in Venezuela.”

    A day earlier, the Sydney branch of the Maritime Union of Australia resolved to “pledge our resolute solidarity with the people of Venezuela and their Bolivarian Revolution”.

    According to the Guardian, Ken Livingstone, former mayor of London, blames the crisis on Chavez’ unwillingness to murder the opposition “oligarchs” when he took control of the country;

    “One of the things that Chávez did when he came to power, he didn’t kill all the oligarchs. There was about 200 families who controlled about 80% of the wealth in Venezuela,” Livingstone told Talk Radio.

    “He allowed them to live, to carry on. I suspect a lot of them are using their power and control over imports and exports to make it difficult and to undermine Maduro.”

    Yeah, because it’s perfectly acceptable to murder the opposition when socialists seize power. It’s been that way since the French Revolution.

    Speaking of socialists, the commies at Venezuelanalyisis blame the US sanctions on the country for the latest unrest;

    While the Venezuelan people, who will suffer from worsened shortages of food and medicine, do not want these sanctions, some of the more extremist opposition leaders do. And it is their allies in the United States, like Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who are lobbying for the sanctions. These right-wing U.S. politicians — with much cooperation from all of the U.S. administrations of the past 15 years — have consistently fought to overthrow the Venezuelan government. This is all they can think about, regardless of the consequences of escalating violence, increased suffering, or even civil war.

    According to BBC, Venezuela’s chief prosecutor, Luisa Ortega, is investigating the charges into the vote fraud claims;

    Ms Ortega, a fierce critic of President Nicolás Maduro, called for an independent audit of the vote.

    The move came just hours after the British-based company, Smartmatic, that supplied the voting system said that the turnout figures had been inflated.

    Mr Maduro has dismissed the claims.

    Ms Ortega said she had appointed two prosecutors to investigate four out of the five directors of the National Electoral Council (CNE) “for this very scandalous act that could generate more violence in the country than what we have already experienced”.

    Sra. Ortega should keep her head on a swivel.

  • Maduro chased through streets by protesters

    Maduro chased through streets by protesters

    The New York Times reports that Venezuelans chased their president, Nicolás Maduro, through the streets of Villa Rosa on Margarita Island off the coast of northern Venezuela, when he appeared at a political event there to open some public housing units there.

    Scenes from the confrontation late Friday, which also appeared in videos uploaded to social media, captured the attention of Venezuelans, many of whom blame the unpopular president for the country’s food shortages.

    In one video, Mr. Maduro tries to calm the pot-bangers by walking among them, only to be surrounded as the furious crowd yells obscenities.

    […]

    Pedro Carvajalino, a pro-government television anchorman, said the protesters had been sent by [Henrique Capriles, an opposition governor who lost to Mr. Maduro in the presidential election in 2013] and other members of the opposition.

    “It was a lack of respect to presidential dignity,” Mr. Carvajalino said.

    You know, as opposed to the lack of respect to human dignity that Venezuelans have suffered – like the dignity of being able to eat and stuff. Twenty protesters were arrested after the demonstration.

    The New York Times admits that Maduro would probably lose a recall vote.

    If the referendum happens this year and Mr. Maduro loses, Venezuelans will have the opportunity to elect a new president. But the government, which is responsible for organizing such a vote, wishes to hold it next year. If Mr. Maduro loses in 2017, the leftist vice president will serve what is left of his six-year term.

    Polls show that Mr. Maduro would be likely to lose a referendum.

    Thank Jimmy Carter, kids.

  • “We want the Venezuela we had 20 years ago”

    Looks like the heirs of Hugo Chavez might be in a bit of trouble.  The picture below – of a demonstration yesterday in Caracas demanding the recall of “El Presidente” Nicolas Maduro – pretty much says it all:
     


     
    The LA Times has a reasonably short article describing the situation.  It’s worth a few minutes of your time.

    Let’s hope the people of Venezuela can take back their country from the corrupt ruling      Communist       Chavenista Politburo.  They deserve better than they have today under the rule of that bunch of leftist idiots.

  • Interesting Polling Results from Venezuela

    Even though it’s in the middle of some seriously bad times, polling organizations still take polls in Venezuela.  And Venezuelans still respond.

    But the latest poll results are a bit surprising.

    The percentage of Venezuelans who feel safe walking down the street at night, according to the latest polls taken by Gallup, is 14%.  In Syria – a nation that has experienced civil war for the past several years – the corresponding percentage is 32%.

    Yes, you read that correctly.  Per recent poll data, almost one out of 3 Syrians feels safe walking down the street at night.  Less than one out of 7 Venezuelans likewise feel safe walking down the street at night.

    But that’s not the fault of the leftist, Communist idiots and ideological heirs of Hugo Chavez “living large” while ruling Venezuela – while simultaneously driving a country of 30 million with some of the world’s largest known oil reserves to the brink of economic collapse via trying to ram command-driven Marxist theology down everyone’s throat. Things would be just great if everyone would quit insisting on that pesky thing called “freedom” and would just follow the late Hugo’s lead!

    Remember:  Don’t Fear the Commie.

  • “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

    Jonn wrote the other day about Venezuela’s new forced labor policies.  That forced labor is deemed “necessary” because the Venezuelan economy      has been mismanaged into the ground by the Bolivarians      is having severe difficulties.   Basic foodstuffs and commodities like toilet paper are in short supply or are unavailable.

    Well, yesterday we learned how the Venezuelan “Nomenklatura” are getting by.  Turns out they’re suffering, too.

    They’re being forced to wear $12,000+ wristwatches.

    Oh, and don’t forget frequent luxury travel.  Venezuelan      Commissar       President Maduro has traveled – with a large entourage, of course – to 32 different countries, taking 132 days, since taking power.  That translates to about 11% of his time in office.

    Fox News Latino has a good story giving more details.  It’s worth a read.

    Some animals apparently are indeed more equal than others.

  • Venezuela’s forced labor plans

    Venezuela’s forced labor plans

    Venezuela was once the shining jewel of South American economies. They had myriad natural resources, including oil and agriculture that kept the population content. Enter the Bolivarians – Hugo Chavez and Nicholas Maduro – who seized many of the successful industries for the government, and like governments everywhere, they mismanaged once-successful businesses so that even commodities like toilet paper are a luxury in Venezuela.

    Yesterday, the border between Venezuela and Colombia opened for the first time in years, and Venezuelans streamed into Colombia on a shopping spree of gigantic proportions;

    Venezuela Colombia

    The shopping tsunami occurred as shortages reach critical levels in socialist-run Venezuela, where people regularly make huge lines outside supermarkets in hopes of getting rice, toilet paper, or whatever else has arrived in the store that day.

    “The government has imposed a barbaric situation on us,” said a Venezuelan woman who walked across the border into Colombia to shop on Sunday.

    So, the Venezuelan government has a solution for their shortages on the shelves – they’re going to force citizens into 60-day periods of agricultural labor, according to CNBC;

    A Venezuelan ministry last week announced Resolution No. 9855, which calls for the establishment of a “transitory labor regime” in order to relaunch the agricultural and food sector. The decree says that the government must do what is “necessary to achieve strategic levels of self-sufficiency,” and states that workers can be forcefully moved from their jobs to work in farm fields or elsewhere in the agricultural sector for periods of 60 days.

    According to the Financial Times, the Venezuelan military has been put in charge of the economy;

    Many were unnerved when Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s unpopular president, this month handed the military extraordinary powers to tackle ravaging shortages in a country where food and basic medicines are increasingly hard to find and the inflation rate is forecast to top 700 per cent.

    As well as taking charge of food production and distribution, Venezuela’s ports have come under army control, and several government ministries now report directly to the defence minister and to Mr Maduro.

    Giovanna de Michele, a defence expert at the Central University of Venezuela, says that, bolstered by these new powers, Gen Padrino López is now “the most powerful man in Venezuela”.

    In an area of the world where military coups used to happen regularly, Maduro handed power to his military in order to placate the generals and secure Maduro’s job.

    But, yeah, everyone who is surprised, raise your hands. I think I see Jimmy Carter’s hand up there in the back of the room.

  • Venezuela’s anti-communists win mid-term elections in landslide

    Venezuela’s anti-communists win mid-term elections in landslide

    Venezuela

    I’m thinking that the landslide victory over communism in Venezuela should be bigger news than it is today. Apparently not, though. Even Fox News has largely ignored it. Venezuela used to be one of the largest oil producers in the region until the government appropriated the drilling and refinery process. Now, even toilet paper is at a premium in the country. Anyway, the opposition to the Maduro regime won 99 seats in the 166-seat legislature with 22 more seats up for grabs. The anti-communists need 13 more seats for a super-majority, according to the Associated Press;

    The opposition coalition needs to take 13 of the 22 remaining races to give it a two-thirds supermajority. That would allow it to pass major legislation, sack Supreme Court justices or convene a convention to rewrite Chavez’s 1999 constitution.

    The victory is likely to fuel demands for President Nicolas Maduro to free jailed opponents and roll back socialist policies during what could be a period of intense political conflict in a deeply polarized country mired in economic crisis.

    The streets of the Venezuelan capital of Caracas broke out in shouts of joy, fireworks and car honking after National Electoral Council President Tibisay Lucena announced the partial results six hours after polls closed.

    Within seconds, Maduro recognized the opposition’s win, saying that despite an adverse result, Venezuela’s democracy had triumphed. But he recalled the long history of US-supported coups in Latin America in blaming the “circumstantial” loss on a conservative “counterrevolution” trying to sabotage the oil-dependent economy and destabilize his rule,

    Yeah, your communist ideology destabilized your rule, fool.