During the Cold War there was a joke that made the rounds: What would happen if the Soviet Union took over the Sahara Desert? Nothing for fifty years and then there would be a shortage of sand. The Venezuelan government is underlining the punch line in that joke:
Go here to The American Interest to read the rest. Socialism is based upon an attitude of willful ignorance and indifference to economic reality. Imaginary worlds are great for kids to play in, they do not work at all as government policy.
Venezuela has been a basket case ever since Chavez took power. Chavez led this nation down the path to self destruction. Only a completely irrational person would look at Castro and see an example to follow.
My wife is from Colombia, Venezuela’s neighbor to the west. The Venezuelan government has been caught by Colombia giving aid, comfort and sanctuary to the FARC. Colombian commandos found a high ranking FARC member in Caracas and kidnapped him to return him to Colombia.
I can go on and on about Latin America. I don’t follow events there as closely as I used to, but there is a good explanation for the typical basket case those nations tend to find themselves in.
What Penguins Fan said. Thankfully, while Colombia is not out of the woods yet, they’ve made lots of headway repudiating the dead philosophies of Chavez and the FARC and have managed to slash drug production and violence significantly.
Check out a book, Out of Captivity, Surviving 1967 Days in the Colombian Jungle by Marc Gonsalves, Keith Stansell, and Thomas Howes
The Diplomad 2.0 seven months ago:
http://thediplomad.blogspot.com/2013/11/venezuela-bozo-as-al-capone-or-is-it.html
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These unnecessary Hells happen everywhere they try it.
Three cheers for
CST!
Liberation Theology!
Baloney!
Read “The Mystery Of Capital” by Herman De Soto to understand why Central and South America is in such an economic mess.
From Instapundit, “Meanwhile, ‘friend of the poor’ Hugo Chavez left an estate worth two billion dollars.”
T. Shaw, your comment puts me in mind of Ebenezer Elliott’s
poem “On Communism”:
.
“What is a Communist? One who has yearnings
For equal division of unequal earnings;
Idler or bungler, or both, he is willing
To fork out his penny and pocket your shilling.”
.
Since Mr. Elliott died in 1849, it’s safe to say that it’s been apparent
from communism’s earliest days just what sort of people it attracts…
Venezuela, it appears is run by the most inept kind of socialists – the ones who cannot deliver anything but rhetoric. Now if these were East German Communists, they would have been able to secure the water and electricity supplies.