It’s about granularity. Problems appears differently as you distance yourself from them. The Earth would appear as a pale blue dot if you stood on the surface of Mars (as the late Carl Sagan coined the phrase). The same is true of Venezuela and their embrace of socialism. From a cocktail party in the Washington Beltway, Venezuelan misery doesn’t impact you. The canapés are passed and you pick up shrimp on a cracker and stuff it into your mouth, chased by yet another glass of champagne, as you pontificate.
On the ground in a land where there is no food, soap, or toilet paper, the view changes. Venezuelans celebrated Youth Day yesterday, on 12 February, by demonstrating against the Maduro government, which still clings to a version of control. Large demonstrations were held in Caracas and at least six other cities.
Venezuelan opposition leaders, including President Juan Guaido, gave speeches to a crowd of thousands gathered in Caracas. Guaido tweeted, “Today all Venezuelans, in different states, accompany the relatives of the young people who lost their lives by repression of the dictatorship.”
The Maduro government remains obdurate, but the recent demonstrations have been the first sustained large-scale protests by the opposition in two years.
President Maduro’s refusal to permit delivery of food and other humanitarian aid is not sustainable. The opposition intends to challenge the road blocks with caravans of relief goods. The stocks of US aid in Colombia undermine Maduro’s insistence that all Venezuelan problems are the result of US economic warfare.
Like all dictators Maduro will have to be forced out. The Romanian solution may be in store for him.
Thank you for the update, LL.
Thanks for the post.
Paul L. Quandt
Slowly but surely they're taking the country back. The slide into socialism was a tragedy of Biblical proportions for Venezuela.
The other socialist dictators in the area must be getting nervous. Is there hope for Cuba?
The plight of Venezuela and Cuba should serve as a cautionary tale highlighting the worthlessness of socialism, yet there's never of shortage of idiots who want to try it again because it's never been done right. Lord, save us from the fools.
How long before we're running aid convoys to California? In the meanwhile, let's have the train billions back. For the WALL.
The California problem is worse than that – I expect cripplingly expensive Federal bailouts, not after the place goes Full Dust Bowl to reconstruct it along some sort of vaguely sane lines, but beforehand, to maintain and support the current mad regime.
The Dems just have too much power, and California's collapse is strengthening them instead of weakening them. Refugees (rich ones) fleeing California's near-future apocalypse have already demographically swamped and politically flipped Arizona and Colorado – Western States just don't have to population to absorb Cali refugees w/o becoming "assimilated".
-Kle.
The Castro legacy will continue long until after you and I are gone, WSF.
There are a lot of fools.
I fled California too. I'm a refugee. They didn't build the wall fast enough to keep me in.
Yeah, but you fled it to someplace different, because you wanted different.
The problem is the ones who flee somewhere different intending to spread their brain disease and make it like Cali was, before the inevitable began happening.
When my wife and I flee Rhode Island (relatively soon) for the West, it will also be to get away from the crap this place has turned into, not tro spread it around.
-Kle.
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