What do Democratic Socialists like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez want America to look like? They say they want America to emulate Scandinavian countries like Denmark and Sweden. But do their proposed policies reflect that? Or do they point down a darker path? Debbie D’Souza, a native Venezuelan and political commentator, investigates.
Hugo Chavez
Socialism Is For Suckers
Since socialists are unwilling or unable to look at what their philosophy does to people, Firewall host Bill Whittle shows us what it is doing to the animals, and asks how the richest person in Venezuela just happens to be the daughter of the socialist former President of that starving country.
Venezuela: John Stossel vs. Noam Chomsky
Stossel has an exchange with famed M.I.T. linguist Noam Chomsky, who once praised former President Hugo Chávez socialist policies.
Venezuela is Feeling the “Bern”
I love Gay Patriot’s clear take on things. I hope all my conservative evangelical readers head over to support such clear thinking and thank him:
In 1999, Venezuela was taken over by Socialist who promised that he would punish big corporations and redistribute wealth to “the people” to provide health care, education, infrastructure, and even out income inequality. (Sound familiar?) The American Left cheered. Celebrities like Sean Penn and Danny Glover praised his Democratic Socialist economic measures. Chavez systematically nationalized the oil, banking, agricultural, food distribution, telecommunications, and power industries in Venezuela; because running them as social democratic communes would eliminate “greed” and give the people lower cost goods and services. The American Left praised him for “democratizing” the Venezuelan economy. When Chavez shut down opposition TV, radio, and newspapers the American Left defended it as necessary to protect the Revolution.
The American Left likes to pretend now that Venezuela isn’t a real example of Social Democracy; but up until the economy collapsed (as every sensible person knew it would) they were Chavez’s biggest cheerleaders, as the links above (or any Google search) shows.
When Hugo Chavez died, he left behind a personal fortune of nearly $4 Billion. Just sayin’
Anyway, the real legacy of Hugo Chavez is that the country with the second largest oil reserves in the Western Hemisphere can’t even keep the lights on. But, Hey, it’s not their fault, you guys.
- (Venezuelan President) Maduro blames the collapse on an “economic war” by capitalists.
Actually, it’s the economic war *on* capitalists that caused your problems, comrade….
New York To Feel the Pain (NY is the new `Red`)
From the “I bet you didn’t know this” files via Breaitbart:
Bill de Blasio is not the only red coming to power in New York City. He will also be joined by a “progressive” majority City Council. Here is a sampling of three of those he will be working with:
—Melissa Mark-Viverito,
top contender for City Council Speaker, went down to Bolivia to campaign for that nation’s marxist dictator, Evo Morales, in 2009. Records of the infamous red narco-terrorist organization FARC show that ties between that organization and Morales stretch all the way back to at least 2003, with meetings organized in Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela between senior FARC operatives and Morales. That was two years before Morales’s Chavez-bought “election” in 2005, and the collaboration continues unabated.
Additionally, in 2010 Mark-Viverito pushed for the release of a jailed leader of the extremely violent Cuban-controlled Puerto Rican terrorist-separatist group FALN, which in the 70s and 80s killed and maimed hundreds in New York, Chicago, and Puerto Rico. Until recently, Mark-Viverito refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance because of her support for Puerto Rican separatism.
—Inez Barron,
a more quiet but equally radical sidekick to her husband Charles Barron. Their views, as voiced by Charles, include: “a special fondness for Castro because of the Cuban leader’s efforts to help several African nations, particularly Angola, in their march toward independence decades ago” (the late Bayard Rustin, a true civil rights champion and architect of the 1963 March on Washington, recognized the Soviet-Cuban rape of Angola as among the most tragic outrages in African history.
Far from any form of “liberation,” the Communist invaders aborted the planned democratic process, plundered the wealth of Angola, and resorted to indiscriminate force and even used chemical weapons. An estimated one million people died in the Angolan civil war. “Robert Mugabe is my hero, and guess what, so is Muammar Qaddafi!” Charles Barron declared in November 2011. In addition to being a tyrant in his own right, Mugabe is sheltering the former Communist dictator of Ethiopia who murdered over one million of his own people–a regime that was defended by Barron’s other hero Fidel Castro, bringing the number of black Africans murdered with Castro’s help to over 2 million. No comment necessary on Qaddafi. He has also expressed hatred of Israel, which earned Charles, a former Black Panther, the endorsement of former KKK leader David Duke.
—Margaret Chin,
former spokeswoman for the Maoist Communist Worker’s Party. She first ran for the City Council in 1991, but thanks to the activism of outraged Chinese-Americans and a man known to New York talk radio fans as “Jimmy from Brooklyn,” her attempt was defeated. In 2009, however, she returned and managed to win the election. It is a sad commentary on society that a longtime fanatical follower of the most tyrannical and bloodthirsty form of Chinese Communism–responsible for the death of some 70 million Chinese people and tens of thousand of Americans in Korea–could get elected on the 20 year anniversary of the Tienanmen Square massacre.
In 1983, Bill de Blasio took a student trip to the USSR. Now he and his allies are making the rest of us relive their youth.
Young Woman Praises Fidel Castro & Hugo Chavez, Older Venezuelan Woman Responds
Just would like to point out, one woman lived the life, the other is in graduate school and has been brainwashed.
A `Man of Contradictions` ~ Venezuela`s Next Step and the Obama Admin (Outlook? Not Too Promising with a Democrat Admin) ~ UPDATED
posted at AEI, “Post-Chávez crisis an opportunity for Venezuela” ~ via Roger Noriega (Twitter: @rogernoriegaUSA)
Alas, Hugo Chávez will not live long enough to atone for his abuse of millions of Venezuelans nor to correct the corrupt and destructive policies that have wrecked the country he leaves behind. Moreover, although his cronies and their Cuban handlers are maneuvering to hold on to power, a Chavista succession is neither stable nor sustainable. With more audacious leadership among Venezuela’s democrats and intelligent solidarity from abroad, Chávez’s legacy might be buried with him.
The foundations of Chavismo are being shaken by an impending socioeconomic meltdown, a faltering oil sector, bitter in-fighting in his own movement, complicity with drug-trafficking and terrorism, rampant street crime, the inept performance by Chávez’s anointed successor, and growing popular rejection of Cuban interference, corrupt institutions, and rigged elections. Beset by these challenges and with Chávez no longer at the top of the ballot, the regime will use every advantage to engineer a victory in a special election to choose a new president.
A currency devaluation last month was too little and too late to break the fall of a Venezuelan economy that has been decimated by gross mismanagement, staggering corruption, and policies that were meant to strangle the independent private sector. The Chavista economic team is scrambling to stabilize the economy in advance of the election, but its incompetence is evident as it ratchets up restrictions that will stifle production and commerce. Inflation, food shortages, power outages, and crumbling infrastructure are taking a terrible toll on the quality of life of all Venezuelans.
Unlike in the past, Venezuela will not be saved by a windfall of oil revenues, because production is greatly diminished and oversubscribed. Contrary to official numbers, actual production is 2.4 million barrels per day, far below a peak of 3.3 million before Chávez. And sweetheart deals with China, Russia, and Iran as well as giveaways to Cuba and other client states in the Caribbean and Central America are bleeding Venezuela dry. Although China loaned about $28 billion to Chávez in the last 18 months, Beijing has closed its checkbook because of the questionable legality of the interim regime and the simple fact that Venezuela has no crude oil left to sell. As a result of this mess, there are reports that Venezuela is actually importing gasoline to satisfy domestic demand. In short, Chávez politicized the state-run oil company and treated its revenue as his petty cash fund – now the company is ruined and the till is empty….
Rich Lowry recently “eulogized” the media stronghold regarding Chavez at Politico:
Let us pause and reflect. The left’s favorite self-aggrandizing thug has shed this mortal coil. Hugo Chávez, R.I.P.
All the country’s least reflective and most reflexive ideologues of the left immediately issued warm farewells — Sean Penn, Michael Moore, Oliver Stone and, of course, the nation’s 39th president, Jimmy Carter.
Carter praised Chávez for his commitment “to bring profound changes to his country,” which by installing himself as the effective president for life, he certainly did. Carter noted his “formidable communications skills,” a quality that is not unusual in successful populist demagogues. In the gentle tone of someone who regrets that his good friend sometimes cheats at bridge, Carter allowed that he did not agree “with all of the methods followed by his government.”
Such is the appeal of the socialist caudillo that ThinkProgress had to take a break from blogging about the latest Republican idiocy, real or imagined, to warn off its allies with a piece titled, “Why Democrats Shouldn’t Eulogize Hugo Chávez.”
It didn’t get to New York Rep. José Serrano in time. He rushed to praise Chávez: “He understood democracy and basic human desires for a dignified life.” As a technical matter, Serrano is right: Chávez understood democracy exceedingly well, if by that you mean he understood how to exploit its forms while hollowing out its institutions to entrench himself in power in perpetuity.
He displaced a corrupt, conscienceless oligarchy when he took power in 1999, and replaced it with his own corrupt, conscienceless rule. In a recent report, Human Rights Watch detailed how “the accumulation of power in the executive and the erosion of human rights protections have allowed the Chávez government to intimidate, censor, and prosecute critics and perceived opponents in a wide range of cases involving the judiciary, the media, and civil society.”
[….]
The night of his death, Rachel Maddow had Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson on her program to discuss Chávez. She asked Robinson in a voice heavy with sarcasm whether Hugo Chávez was really “the monster” he was made out to be. Robinson explained that Chávez bonded with the poor and had lots of popular support. Maddow very gently prodded Robinson to address criticisms of Chávez for not advancing freedom, “even as he did advance economic populist aims.”
Unable to muster any of the denunciatory venom he lavishes on Republicans once or twice a week, Robinson issued forth with a strangely tortured construction, “he was not what we would call a lover of democracy as we would like to see it practiced.” Eric Cantor must wonder why Robinson doesn’t similarly mute his criticisms of him. Robinson noted that Chávez gerrymandered electoral districts, but, hey, “that happens elsewhere as well.” All in all, he was … “a man of contradictions.” You know, like Disraeli or Gladstone.
I have followed the actions of Marxists in Venezuela for quite some time (here as well as at my old blog), and the craziness Hollywood supported Hugo Chavez with. I wish to post again a blogger from Venezuela, and her clear statement of the travesty our Left embraces… from The End of Venezuela As I Know It:
Chavez died today…. When I heard the news, these past fourteen years passed by me in an instant. My adolescence, my youth, all that fear, all that disappointment, all those street demonstrations, all those stories, all those lives that were lost in the way not by cancer but by the sound of a trigger. I wrote to my friends, to all those people who accompanied me during all those years when everything was about Chavez. All those people with frustrated dreams and hopes. Everyone who saw in this fourteen years a definite ruin of what we once called home. Pain, that is Hugo Chavez legacy.
One should keep in mind that this destruction of human life for a “conceived of” utpoia is what the Left will sacrifice. That is, lives for an ideal. Here is an older informal poll showing that Chavez was more popular than Kerry (via Breitbart):
In an informal poll in 2004, the populist progressive site Democratic Underground took a reader poll asking who they respected more: Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez or then-Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Chavez won, 70% to 30%.
So the type of help needed in South America/Venezuela is not one that will readily coming from our current administration. Another horrible effect of the past election, or mandate — “loss of lives traded for an unproved ideal.” Another “thank you Dems” is needed.
In fact, one of the largest financial supporters to the Democratic Party — the SEIU — held a candlelight vigil for Hugo Chavez:
Marching Marxists… SEIU Holds Hugo Chavez Memorial Candlelight Vigil and March in Times Square
The SEIU radicals organized a Hugo Chavez memorial march and candelight vigil in New York City on Friday. Global Dispatch reported:
[….]
A memorial vigil was held Wednesday at the Venezuelan consulate in Manhattan, but the union march is raising eyebrows.
“Bring candles will walk to the statue of the Liberator Simon Bolivar in Central Park.” – instructions included in the hispanic announcement which reached out to Fidel Castro supporters as well.
[….]
A Celebration and procession for the life of our comrade Hugo Chávez, an extraordinary human and revolutionary. Your energy, love and example will not be forgotten.
The revolution will continue until there is liberation for all.
And again, the Marxist/National Socialist connections at he SEIU have been confirmed a long time ago:
I have long contended that the US’s largest and most militant labor organization the Service Employees International Union, is allied to, or subordinate to the country’s largest Marxist organization – Democratic Socialists of America.
Here is proof of this connection, from the latest edition of DSA’s Democratic Left, Winter 2011/2012, page 11
Continuing:
Detroit DSA leader David Green wrote in Democratic Left, Spring 2007
Our goal as socialists is to abolish private ownership of the means of production. Our immediate task is to limit the capitalist class’s prerogatives in the workplace…In the short run we must at least minimize the degree of exploitation of workers by capitalists. We can accomplish this by promoting full employment policies, passing local living wage laws, but most of all by increasing the union movement’s power…
Through SEIU, DSA has 2.1 million paid lackeys to do just that.
`The Morning Answer` (Radio Program-870am) Memorializes a Dictator ~ Chavez
From video description:
Ben, Heidi, and Brian talk about the death of Chavez and the confused reaction by the left and the press. (Posted by: Religio-Political Talk) A very small portion of Celsius 41.11’s opener (http://tinyurl.com/cwhd22p) is inserted after the audio of the NYT’s reporter.
And a small paragraph from The End of Venezuela As I Know It:
Chavez died today…. When I heard the news, these past fourteen years passed by me in an instant. My adolescence, my youth, all that fear, all that disappointment, all those street demonstrations, all those stories, all those lives that were lost in the way not by cancer but by the sound of a trigger. I wrote to my friends, to all those people who accompanied me during all those years when everything was about Chavez. All those people with frustrated dreams and hopes. Everyone who saw in this fourteen years a definite ruin of what we once called home. Pain, that is Hugo Chavez legacy.
Here is some words from the New York Times:
…Dr. Edmundo Chirinos, a psychiatrist who got to know Mr. Chávez as a patient, described him in a profile in The New Yorker in 2001 as “a hyperkinetic and imprudent man, unpunctual, someone who overreacts to criticism, harbors grudges, is politically astute and manipulative, and possesses tremendous stamina, never sleeping more than two or three hours a night.”
Mr. Chávez would delight in angering his critics in rich countries. He heaped praise, for instance, on Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, the Venezuelan terrorist better known as Carlos the Jackal, with whom he corresponded.
“I defend him,” Mr. Chávez said of his friend, who was jailed in France on charges of murdering two French police agents and a Lebanese informer in Paris in 1975. “I don’t care what they say tomorrow in Europe.”
No mentor was more supportive than Mr. Castro, who well understood how important Venezuela’s subsidized oil shipments were to Cuba’s fragile economy. An ally from the start of Mr. Chávez’s presidency in 1999, he offered help in one of Mr. Chávez’s most difficult moments, a coup d’état that removed him from office for 48 hours in April 2002. Mr. Castro telephoned Venezuela’s top military officials, pressing them to assist in returning Mr. Chávez to office.
The collapse of the coup, which received tacit support from the Bush administration, and Mr. Chávez’s swift return to power signaled a shift in his presidency. Seemingly chastened, Mr. Chávez promised compromise and harmony in the future. But instead of reconciliation, his response was retaliation.
He began describing his critics as “golpistas,” or putschists, while recasting his own failed 1992 coup as a patriotic uprising. He purged opponents from the national oil company, expropriated the land of others and imprisoned retired military officials who had dared to stand against him. The country’s political debate became increasingly poisonous, and it took its toll on the country.
Private investors, unhinged over Mr. Chávez’s nationalizations and expropriation threats, halted projects. Hundreds of thousands of scientists, doctors, entrepreneurs and others in the middle class left Venezuela, even as large numbers of immigrants from Haiti, China and Lebanon put down stakes here.
The homicide rate soared under his rule, turning Caracas into one of the world’s most dangerous cities. Armed gangs lorded over prisons, as they did in previous governments, challenging the state’s authority. Simple tasks, like transferring the title of a car, remained nightmarish odysseys eased only by paying bribes to churlish bureaucrats.
Other branches of government often bent to his will. He fired about 19,000 employees of Petróleos de Venezuela, the national oil company, in response to a strike in 2002 and 2003. In 2004, he stripped the Supreme Court of its autonomy. In legislative elections in 2010, his supporters preserved a majority in the National Assembly by gerrymandering.
All the while, Mr. Chávez rewrote the rule book on using the media to enhance his power. With “Aló Presidente” (“Hello, President”), his Sunday television program, he would speak to viewers in his booming voice for hours on end. His government ordered privately controlled television stations to broadcast his speeches. While initially skeptical of social media, he came to embrace Twitter, attracting millions of followers.
He also basked in the comforts allowed him as head of state in a nation with some of the largest oil reserves outside the Middle East. He traveled in a luxurious Airbus A-319. In one jaunt around Venezuela in 2007 with the actor Sean Penn, he roamed the plane regaling foreign journalists with tales from his days as a soldier…
I celebrate with others their happiness of Hugo’s loss.
Communism Fail!
The `Hero` of Sean Penn, Harry Belafonte, Oliver Stone, Kevin Spacey, and Danny Glover Chasing Jews from Venezuela
Via The Blaze
I have written quite a bit in the past about Venezuela… an ex-coworker was from there and I got lots of inside info during that time, click graphic for the older posts:
Chavez To Rule by Decree for 18-months
CARACAS, Dec 17 (Reuters) – Venezuela’s parliament gave President Hugo Chavez decree powers for 18 months on Friday, outraging opposition parties that accused him of turning South America’s biggest oil producer into a dictatorship. [Who want’s to bet that this will never be undone – Editor]
The move consolidated the firebrand socialist leader’s hold on power after nearly 12 years in office, and raised the prospect of a fresh wave of nationalizations as the former paratrooper seeks to entrench his self-styled “revolution.”
Chavez had asked for the fast-track powers for one year, saying he needed them to deal with a national emergency caused by floods that drove nearly 140,000 people from their homes. [Oh yes there is always a crisis that leads to these things isn’t there – Editor]
But the Assembly, which is dominated by loyalists from his Socialist Party, decided to extend them for a year and a half.
That means the president can rule by decree until mid-2012, and can keep opposition parties out of the legislative process until his re-election campaign is well under way for Venezuela’s next presidential vote in December of that year. [Who want to bet that there will either be no election, or this will be the last one, or that the opposition gets “vanished” to the point where the election is pointless – Editor]
Department of Labor Representative Dolores Huerta Involkes Hugo Chavez While Saying Republicans Hate Latinos
The BLAZE h/t:
Audio from Department of Labor representative Dolores Huerta’s speech praising Venezualan dictator Hugo Chavez and saying “Republicans hate Latinos,” reveals that Huerta’s appearance seems to have been supported by Congressman Raul M. Grijalva (D-AZ). A representative from Grijalva’s office attended and “brought” Huerta to the Aprill 2006 speech, which addressed students at Tucson High Magnet School….
…(read more)…
Hugo Chavez Expanding Power Grab
Chavez is expanding his control of socialism by taking over more private businesses. Maybe Spicoli can get a share in one of these companies.
(Archived at ECONOMICS JUNKIE)
President Hugo Chavez announced Saturday the expropriation of a group of iron, aluminum and transportation companies in Venezuela’s mining region.
Among the expropriated companies is Materiales Siderurgicos, or Matesi, which is the Venezuelan subsidiary of Luxembourg-based steel maker Tenaris SA.
Venezuela’s socialist president said in a televised that his government was going to take over Matesi because “we couldn’t reach an amicable and reasonable settlement with the owners.”
Chavez said production at the company has been paralyzed since midway through last year, when Venezuela’s president announced plans to nationalize it.
Chavez said he was also going to expropriate Venezuelan-owned Orinoco Iron and aluminum-maker Norpro de Venezuela C.A., which is an affiliate of the U.S. company Norpro in association with France’s Saint Gobain, among other companies.
As well, Venezuela will take over transport companies that ship raw materials in areas southeast of Caracas. He did not name the companies.
Since coming to power more than a decade ago, Chavez has nationalized major companies in the electricity, oil, steel and coffee sectors, as well as other private businesses.