
In Venezuela, life has gone from bad to worse. And the world has quit noticing - petethomas
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-ocanto-venezuela-guaido-maduro-trujillo-radio-20190421-story.html
======
twblalock
The world still notices. I've recently seen a number of articles about the
protests and the opposition leader Juan Guaido. In fact the New York Times
published an op-ed piece by him fairly recently.

~~~
danemacaulay
citing the new york times :/ didnt they push for WMD in iraq? edit: ah yes,
unquestioned reporting pushing the administration's policy of war.
[https://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/may/26/pressandpublis...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/may/26/pressandpublishing.usnews)

isnt this what happened with collusion as well? oh yeah
[https://taibbi.substack.com/](https://taibbi.substack.com/)

~~~
amazingman
The actual content of the Mueller report makes Taibbi’s post about it appear
both premature and immature.

------
tlrobinson
> If there is power, and I can do my job, I’ve been told by my bosses to be
> more measured in how I cover what’s happening in Venezuela. They’re
> terrified of being shut down by the government and having their equipment
> confiscated. That would spell the end of our station.

Maybe writing a (non-anonymous) article about the situation for the LA Times
isn't the best idea?

------
apo
The baffling thing about this is the vast oil wealth the country controls. Its
oil reserves are the largest in the word, yet its economy lies in shambles.

That takes some serious mismanagement.

~~~
rStar
The economy of Venezuela lies in shambles due to US intervention and
sanctions. Venezuela has very limited access to the world market.

~~~
gspetr
Easily untrue. The US has been 40% of Venezuela's oil export[0]. If they
wanted to, they could have obliterated Venezuela's economy in a second.

[0]
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/EEPPHOTO...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/EEPPHOTO1.png)

P.S. I'm Russian and do not have the regional bias.

~~~
rStar
[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-
rosnef...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-rosneft-
exclusive-idUSKCN1RU2A4)

------
luord
I'm from Colombia and my family lives in one of the biggest cities that is
relatively close to the border. I visit frequently and every time I visit,
there are more and more venezuelan immigrants. This started happening years
ago.

I'm shocked by the people who pretend that this is all propaganda and that the
venezuelan people are ok with their government. I'm sure that the people
living on the streets here aren't.

------
lifehacked
How do their "leaders" still have their heads?

~~~
mdgrech23
It's not always that easy. Look at what's going on in the US right now for
example...

~~~
steve19
The US political situation is not even remotely comparable, ignoring the
plundering of the economy by the government and military, in 2020 or by 2024
at the latest, the US WILL have a different president. Absolutely and without
a shadow of a doubt.

~~~
votepaunchy
Presidents are inaugurated the year after the election, so ‘21 or ‘25.

------
jmpman
Unfortunately, the population accepted a gun ban back in 2012.

~~~
twblalock
As long as the military continues to support the government, an armed
population cannot not successfully force Maduro out.

There are also many Venezuelan civilians who still support the regime. These
people would presumably also have guns.

~~~
whb07
this goes against every revolution in the history books.

~~~
crispinb
Untrue. Read (for example) Erica Chenoweth's detailed empirical work on civil
resistance. Nonviolent resistance has a considerably higher real-world chance
of success than armed uprising. It also has the huge advantage of leaving
behind less collective trauma, giving post-revolutionary society a better
chance of sustaining peace.

------
burger_moon
It's not just Venezuela, look at what is happening in Haiti.

------
jeffdavis
Regardless of whether this is the "fault" of socialism, socialism demands a
lot of centralized government power, which seems like the perfect cover for
this kind of horrible government.

(Aside: I think a lot of social programs could be run quite well at a local
level, but when a politician asks for immense power at the scale of a nation
or large state, I get very worried.)

~~~
jeffdavis
Getting a lot of downvotes for this comment, but could someone please explain
where I'm going wrong? A lot of people think the way I do, so it would be
helpful to explain.

A country with a bright future just a couple decades ago experienced a truly
remarkable decline after a socialist was elected. I'm sure there are other
factors, but surely this is going to be seen as yet another failure of
socialism.

Whether this is because the socialism was not "implemented correctly" or not,
clearly the socialist label has been used by a number of very bad people as a
way to accumulate more power.

~~~
EdSharkey
I think you pushed enough buttons and simplified the issues enough that people
who disagreed with you downvoted you. No big deal...

------
danemacaulay
venezuela is under economic attack, see
[http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/marapr_19/marapr_19_05.htm...](http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/marapr_19/marapr_19_05.html)

that centralized planning doesnt work is just wrong :) look to walmart and
amazon as examples of efficient central planning.
[https://www.versobooks.com/books/2822-the-people-s-
republic-...](https://www.versobooks.com/books/2822-the-people-s-republic-of-
walmart)

~~~
twblalock
> that centralized planning doesnt work is just wrong :) look to walmart and
> amazon as examples of efficient central planning.

Walmart is one of many players in the economy and it reacts to consumer demand
when it decides what to produce and sell. That is not a form of central
planning.

An example of central planning would be the government ordering Walmart to
produce ten million bicycles per year and to sell them for $80 each --
regardless of how many people actually want to buy bicycles and how much they
are willing to pay.

------
seibelj
When they have power, Bitcoin has been a solution for wealth preservation and
capital movement given their pariah status with western banks and the never
ending destruction of their currency. When the dust clears and capitalism is
restored, there will be a fascinating case study on this development.

~~~
CryptoPunk
Hopefully when Bitcoin-Core transaction fees reach $30 again like they did in
December 2017, the common Venezuelan people will be able to afford the $60
overhead ($30 opening fee and $30 reserve needed to close the channel in case
of counterparty fraud) to open a Lightning Network channel, or simply switch
to a more scalable cryptocurrency.

~~~
nyolfen
i’ve read accounts that say litecoin is nearly as popular as btc there

~~~
CryptoPunk
I'm not surprised. I'm betting on Bitcoin Cash, which has recently overtaken
Litecoin in tx volume, and has most of the big early adopters in the Bitcoin
space (e.g. Bitpay, Coinbase) backing it, and of course, Ethereum. It doesn't
really matter what it is, as long as it can gain a sufficient amount of
liquidity and number of users.

------
drb91
The world could always halt sanctions: the source of the problems.

~~~
twblalock
The Venezuelan government destroyed the economy. On top of that, the
government is using military force to prevent foreign aid from entering the
country.

Sanctions make things a little bit worse, and they make Maduro's claims that
outside forces are to blame for Venezuela's problems seem more convincing.
(Sanctions have the same propaganda effect in North Korea).

But in any case, it is pretty clear that the Venezuelan government's
mismanagement of the economy has been the primary factor for almost 20 years:
Chavez was first elected in 1999 and the problems began under his leadership.

~~~
drb91
The economy is predominantly private: it is the sanctions hurting the economy.
I refuse to defend Maduro, but he is the peoples’ choice. Yes there are anti-
Maduro rallies, but there are also pro-Maduro rallies the media conveniently
ignores.

Meanwhile, the idea that the US could help without putting someone right wing
in place that happens to benefit the supply of fuel against the interests of
the people of Venezuela like Guaidó is absurd.

If you want to help the people of Venezuela, end sanctions. This is an
economic siege and we are seeing the consequences.

~~~
vixen99
Here's a different view: [https://economics21.org/how-socialism-destroyed-
venezuela](https://economics21.org/how-socialism-destroyed-venezuela)

~~~
drb91
That is blatantly from a capitalist think tank.

------
antoineMoPa
1\. What does this have to do with Hacker News

2\. Everything but the US point of view seems to have been flagged here. What
is the goal of having comments if there is no discussion.

