Saturday, November 9, 2013

With Chavez long dead, the madness still continues in Venezuela

(Caracas) One thing that is a proven fact is that communism, no matter what its form, simply just does not work. We saw this in Eastern Europe, we saw this in Russia, we saw this in China and we definitely saw it in Cambodia. Every state which adopted the all for one and one for all mantra of the various little red books have found that actually as in the book 'Animal Farm' only the first half of that statement became fact - "all for one", and that the latter half didn't apply to the rest, especially poor Boxer. Which is why they all got rid of communism. However, there are people who haven't learned from history and still proclaim to the masses that communism is the way to go. (British trade unions for example.) And they wax lyrical from the pulpit that if we all do as they say then everybody will be alight. Which brings me to Venezuela.

Venezuela is an oil rich country, it is also a fertile country blessed with everything it needs to be self sufficient. However, in 1999 military strong man Hugo Chavez came to power and adopted the way of the little red book, and we find 14 years later that under his leadership Venezuelans have to suffer power, water, food, fuel and even toilet paper shortages. He clamped down on free speech, he promoted anti-Semitism, he has destabilised the region with his support for terrorist groups and by importing enough Russian and Chinese weapon systems to start a small arms race in the region. But Chavez died in March this year. You'd think whoever took over would try to rectify his mistakes, alas no, his successor President Nicolas Maduro continues the left-wing polices of Hugo and instead of looking in the mirror for the reason why Venezuela is a basket case, he blames anybody and everybody. (Usually the US and the Jews).

Well, with a crumbling support base, El Prezidente has hit on a plan (like all South American despots) to win the support of the people. He started off with the creation of a new Ministry of Supreme Social Happiness. This he followed by declaring an early Christmas, and now he has accused a electrical chain store of inflating the prices of the goods it sells, so he's nationalised the five-store, 500-employee Daka chain, sent soldiers to occupy the shops, and forced the company to start selling products at cheaper prices.

Wow, I wonder what he will do next, declare war on a smaller neighbour? Isn't it great how communism only delivers on paper and never the real world?