Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 3:05pm

Another Triumph For Socialism

 

 

Venezuela continues to demonstrate that the further down the path of Socialism a nation treads, the closer it also comes to economic collapse:

Here in the Caribbean port town of Barcelona, two premature infants died recently on the way to the main public clinic because the ambulance had no oxygen tanks. The hospital has no fully functioning X-ray or kidney dialysis machines because they broke long ago. And because there are no open beds, some patients lie on the floor in pools of their blood.

It is a battlefield clinic in a country where there is no war.

“Some come here healthy, and they leave dead,” Dr. Leandro Pérez said, standing in the emergency room of Luis Razetti Hospital, which serves the town.

This nation has the largest oil reserves in the world, yet the government saved little money for hard times when oil prices were high. Now that prices have collapsed — they are around a third what they were in 2014 the consequences are casting a destructive shadow across the country. Lines for food, long a feature of life in Venezuela, now erupt into looting. The bolívar, the country’s currency, is nearly worthless.

The crisis is aggravated by a political feud between Venezuela’s leftists, who control the presidency, and their rivals in congress. The president’s opponents declared a humanitarian crisis in January, and this month passed a law that would allow Venezuela to accept international aid to prop up the health care system.

“This is criminal that we can sit in a country with this much oil, and people are dying for lack of antibiotics,” says Oneida Guaipe, a lawmaker and former hospital union leader.

But Mr. Maduro, who succeeded Hugo Chávez, went on television and rejected the effort, describing the move as a bid to undermine him and privatize the hospital system.

“I doubt that anywhere in the world, except in Cuba, there exists a better health system than this one,” Mr. Maduro said.

Late last fall, the aging pumps that supplied water to the University of the Andes Hospital exploded. They were not repaired for months.

So without water, gloves, soap or antibiotics, a group of surgeons prepared to remove an appendix that was about to burst, even though the operating room was still covered in another patient’s blood.

Go here to read the rest of the story by Nicholas Casey of the New York Times.  (Yeah, when even the New York Times is printing stories like this, you can tell how bad it has to be in a socialist regime.)  The Church in Venezuela has played a heroic role throughout this exercise in folly in their nation.  Please recall this statement by the Bishops of Venezuela on January 12, 2015:

Pastoral exhortation ethical and spiritual renewal tackle the crisis

ETHICS AND SPIRITUAL RENEWAL IN THE CRISIS

1. With deep and renewed hope in God, at the beginning of this year 2015 the Bishops of Venezuela salute all Venezuelans, and lift our prayers to God for the welfare and peace of the country. In the midst of the problems that beset us, we have seen in Christmas light of Jesus, our Divine Savior (Luke 2: 9), who encourages us to go forward, faithful to his word, to build a better world. Trusting again we share with our people some concerns about the current situation, to help resolve the crisis we face.

IN THE MIDST OF A GENERAL CRISIS

2. The first part of 2014 was marked by strong political and social upheaval. At this time the bishops strongly express our rejection of all violence, whatever its origin and authors, as she was a balance of 43 dead and many injured, which we deplore without distinction of social or political groups; denounce the excessive use of force in the suppression of protests and the detention of thousands of people, many of them still in prison or subject to filing criminal courts or other restrictive measures of liberty; and we express our condolences and solidarity with the victims and their families. There are numerous reports of human rights violations including torture of detainees, which must be addressed and punished the perpetrators of these crimes.

3. That grave crisis raised the need for dialogue between government leaders, opposition and other sectors. Thanks, among other things, called the Pope Francis and participation of the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop. Aldo Giordano, he began a dialogue which unfortunately was not the first meetings.

4. This situation has been joined in recent months generalized anxiety of the people by the economic crisis that we suffer, as is subjected unseen difficulties to access basic necessities. A huge external debt, which jeopardizes the future of Venezuelans, the unbridled inflation, devaluation of our currency, smuggling mining and commodity shortages have led to the increasing impoverishment of large sectors of the population, particularly those with fewer resources economic. This crisis is compounded by administrative corruption, centralism, looting the treasury currency, the recent decline in oil prices, and the ineffectiveness of the measures and plans being implemented by the Government to address it.

5. We also have a situation of worsening social violence. Offensive language, the systematic exclusion to any contrary opinion, incite fanaticism and irrationality. The crisis of public insecurity is intolerable. Unfortunately the efforts and programs developed by the government to control this scourge have failed. To this add serious problems in the health field, such as viral epidemics unaddressed efficiently, lack of medicines, medical supplies and equipment throughout the country. Moreover, the death of over forty inmates in the prison of Uribana reveals a tragic situation in our prison system should be reformed completely.

A WRONG WAY

6. The greatest problem and the cause of the general crisis, as we have noted elsewhere, it is the decision of the national government and other public bodies to impose a politicaleconomic system of socialist Marxist or communist. This system is totalitarian and centralist, establishes state control over all aspects of life of citizens and public and private institutions. Also threaten freedom and rights of individuals and associations and has led to oppression and ruin to all countries that have applied.

7. This decision is evidenced, inter alia, in contempt of any proposal other than the official, in the development of a communication hegemony coming and limits the activities of independent media in order to control the unions, the judicial persecution of political dissent, in the multiplication of laws, regulations and procedures that hinder private sector action, even those non-profit organizations that are dedicated to promoting social welfare works. Also it is manifested in the recent appointment of Governing the National Electoral Council of some judges of the Supreme Court and the authorities of Citizen Power according to partisan interests, which does not reflect the political plurality of the country and Assembly national, and has led to legal and ethical questioning of the procedures used. Again we say: Marxist socialism is the wrong way, and therefore should not be set in Venezuela.

URGENCY OF CONSULTATION AND DIALOGUE EFFECTIVE

8. For all these reasons we propose dialogue as essential to achieve consensus and resolve the serious problems of our country through again. Now, sincere and effective dialogue changes and agreements providing good of all, it is only possible with a transcendental hope that mobilizes the majority of Venezuelans – of all political-trends with essential values for regeneration country. Moreover, the National Assembly should be the first instance of dialogue and respect for political pluralism in Venezuela.

9. To achieve consensus requires absolute respect for human rights, and rule excessive violence in the control of legitimate expressions of people by state officials. You also need to release political prisoners and stop using the judicial system to intimidate political opponents and disabling. Freedom of expression and the existence of independent media must be respected.

10. The restoration of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States after 53 years of fighting, prompted by the mediation of Pope Francis reveals that intransigent positions and radical, are sterile, and finally must give way to encounter and dialogue.

CALLED TO LIABILITY

11. The National Government and all authorities must take responsibility in solving the problems facing the country, activating the necessary corrective measures to prevent the worsening crisis. The leaders of public bodies, beyond the procedures that were designated, must exercise their duties with fairness and justice, considering that God and Fatherland judge and punish those who commit any injustice and violate the oath to act all right.

12. Likewise the leaders of the various political, business, labor and cultural sectors should be involved in solving these serious problems. The opposition leaders are obliged to present a common project for the country and work for the good of Venezuela, overcoming the temptations of personalism. The military must act with impartiality postulated by the Constitution. The political forces and the Venezuelan people in general should reject all violence. If we all act with the weapon of nonviolence, we can reconstruct the social coexistence, the constitutional order and internal peace of the Republic.

13. And it should be emphasized that each of us, as citizens, have political responsibilities can not be delegated. In exercising this responsibility must exercise and defend actively and steadily, always with peaceful means, our rights and the rights of others and demand respect for the conditions for a just, peaceful and beneficial for all national coexistence.

PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS

14. A great opportunity to exercise that political responsibility for this year are elections for the National Assembly. Political actors must apply for properly selected and capable of high responsibility, moral qualities and spirit of service to the people. We call on all voters to participate, because the vote of each of us depends on the composition of the future Assembly, important factor in solving the country’s problems. The National Electoral Council has an inescapable moral obligation to act with transparency and impartiality, without promoting changes which adversely justice and fair representation of the population. We also have a duty to improve the electoral system so that there is no ventajismos of any group, and state resources are not used to promote any candidate.

SOCIAL ECONOMIC REFORM AND RENEWAL

15. The economic system that is imposing the Government is clearly ineffective. It is necessary that, aside rigid ideological conceptions failed and the desire to control everything, the Government implement reforms that remove barriers to production, stop inflation, and solve the shortages and the high cost of basic necessities. Including through promoting the private sector in the economy, enshrined in the Constitution.

16. Venezuela needs a new entrepreneurial spirit with audacity and creativity. It is urgent to stimulate production industry and giving legal certainty and promoting efficient companies, both public and private. But it is also necessary to observe an ethical, honest and upright conduct. Recall that corruption wrongly charged for any procedure, speculation on prices, want to make money without working, fraud, are evils and sins that must be banished from the national life and behavior of all citizens, particularly of state officials.

17. The security must urgently act with greater commitment and effectiveness within the framework of the Constitution and laws to ensure personal and property security of Venezuelans, effectively combat insecurity, and submit to the crime, which cause so much pain all social sectors. In the working world must uphold the legitimate rights of workers to the union. In the health field the Government must address current serious deficiencies, improve network hospital and social utility, and remedy and definitely shortages of medicines and medical equipment.

18. To achieve a profound social renewal is necessary that all we promote and we support strongly the family unit, as the family is the fundamental unit of society. We deplore the emigration of thousands of Venezuelans who disintegrates families and constitutes an impoverishment of our human talent. It should also promote, at all levels, a new national climate of cooperation, brotherhood, understanding, oblivious to the confrontation, exclusion and polarization. This is necessary especially in communities of recent residential developments in the Great Housing Mission Venezuela, to help them live as good neighbors and brothers in a new situation for them.

ETHICS AND SPIRITUAL RENEWAL

19. The serious crisis we face in Venezuela reveals a deeper situation: a moral crisis of values, attitudes, motivations and behaviors that must be corrected. We have to overcome attitudes as the desire for easy wealth and corruption, political arrogance, arrogance and lust of power, selfishness, laziness, hatred and violence. And we have to rescue the principles of legality, legitimacy and morality that support the fabric of social life. We are convinced that it is possible country in which democracy, with effective and healthy institutions, where every person and the whole society to develop their initiatives, overcome and commitment to the promotion of the common good. The practice of personal and civic virtues, which was fine example Venerable Dr. José Gregorio Hernández is required

20. Therefore, as pastors of the Church in Venezuela, make an insistent call to moral conversion, and the fulfillment of the commandments of God’s law. You need to listen and fulfill the word of God, path to personal and social happiness (Lk 11: 28), who invites us to revive the best of ourselves, love of neighbor to build a Venezuela renewed life together where bloom dignity and rights of all.

21. This national crisis will not be resolved in its entirety without a moral and spiritual renewal that lead to concrete action lines. We can not believe in God and act in any way. Reject injustice, corruption and violence as moral evils that plunge the country, and live according to the project of the Kingdom of God preached by Jesus Christ. As Pope Francis reminds us: “It’s about loving God who reigns in the world. To the extent that he achieves reign among us, the social life will field of fraternity, justice, peace, dignity for all “(Evangelii Gaudium 180).

PUT OUR HOPE IN CHRIST

22. Dear brothers and sisters: this dramatic analysis we do with pain, born of our proximity to the suffering people, and pastoral mission that drives us to be promoters of human dignity and peace. We feel solidarity with those who feel particularly anxious, distressed and anxious about the current situation. We express our determination and commitment to personal and community renewal in line with the demands of the Gospel proclaimed by Pope Francis, and to continue working to bring firm hope and God’s comfort to the needy, in line with the option for the poor.

23. In the midst of this crisis, we proclaim Christ crucified and risen Christ is our hope. He overcame adversity and evil. He gives us his Holy Spirit to renew the world. Hope is not passivity and conformism. Despite the difficulties foreseen for this year, Christians know that we are in God’s hands. In Jesus, “God with us(Mt 1: 23), we place our trust. No defeatism, act with enthusiasm to overcome the crisis we face.

24. With these sentiments and with great affection, implore upon all the inhabitants of our beloved country the blessings of God and the maternal protection of Mary, the Virgin of Coromoto, patron of Venezuela. Amen.

Caracas, January 12, 2015

The reaction of the socialist thugs who run Venezuela has been to make explicit the fact that for them Socialism is a religion:

Our Chavez, who art in heaven, in the earth, in the sea, and in we the delegates
Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy legacy come, for us to bring to the peoples of near and far
Give us this day your light to guide us daily
And lead us not into the temptation of capitalism
But deliver us from the malice of oligarchy
For ours is the nation,

The peace, and the life,

For ever and ever.

Amen.

 

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DJH
DJH
Monday, May 16, AD 2016 7:40am

I’m not sure I can say what I’d like to say without me being banned from ever posting again on this website.
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Suffice it to say, the times I have argued with my spouse–really, me screaming at him, since he isn’t the type to fight back (and I think he quietly agrees with me anyway)–have been over the corrupt/socialist leanings our the RCC’s hierarchy.
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This scares the heck out of me, since we Americans are not immune to this kind of thing.

Steve Phoenix
Steve Phoenix
Monday, May 16, AD 2016 9:16am

I am glad that TAC is giving attention to this disaster in Venezuela. As many know, on Friday (5/13/16), massive and undeniably large riots broke out, again, in one particular case about 5000 people mobbing a government supermarket, desperate for food.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/10780264/In-pictures-Renewed-rioting-in-Venezuelan-capital.html

Some people were beaten, observers saw at least one man killed, and mayhem exploded all over.

Our dear leader made it a point back in Apr. 2009 to proudly meet with Nicolas Maduro’s predecessor, Chavez, and announced the “re-start” of US-Venezuelan relations at that time. GW-Bush-Haters and communists can always quickly find common ground.

Back in 2006, PBXVI met with Chavez, but also issued afterwards a statement of concern for the (even-then) growing impoverishment of the Venezuelan people. In a fit of anger,Chavez announced imperiously “Christ needs no ambassador”, but lives in the poor: a position very close to that of a certain Argentine pope:
..
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/venezuelan-president-slams-pope-benedict-xvi/

Of course the aforementioned Argentine pontiff met with Maduro in June 2013. I know of no followup statements then of concern. But during the past 3 years of downward spiraling conditions, of course the Argentine blistered Donald Trump sharply, but had the most indirect, meek statements (PF wrote a carefully couched letter May 2nd, asking for action regarding the Venezuelan catastrophe,

http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2016/05/02/pope_francis_writes_letter_to_venezuelan_president_maduro/1227014

… but no specific actions, and certainly has never denounced Maduro and his band of merry thieves, specifically Maduro however, “the man of the people”, who has made himself a multi-millionaire during this time, and had carried on the certifiably anti-Semitic practices of his predecessor. Strange.

Meanwhile, the situation in Venezuela—a nation that under Maduro has even more stringently tightened gun controls, and we know why— grows terribly worse each day.

Penguin Fan
Penguin Fan
Monday, May 16, AD 2016 1:41pm

What has happened in Venezuela is an atrocity, not a tragedy. My missus is from neighboring Colombia. The countries have similar cultures (not identical) and were at one time a single nation – first, Nueva Granada, then, after Liberation, Gran Colombia.
Venezuela has had the worst of it with caudillos. The Church in Venezuela has not been as strong as the Church in Colombia, either.
Chavez was a socialist punk and a Castro suckup. He used Venezuelan oil, which due to its high sulfur vcontent can be refined only in the US, to prop up Castro’s feeble economy. Chavez stole land and factories from foreign investors, all in the name of “Bolivarism” his own version of Marxism.

Chavez purged the Army of anyone who would not suck up to him. Chavez provided aid and comfort to the FARC and Colombia caught him doing it. Chavez helped get Cortes elected in Ecuador and Evo in Bolivia.

You will never hear this Pontiff confront the megalomaniac Maduro. They are in many ways kindred spirits.

Pray for the Venezuelan people. They deserve better.

James
James
Tuesday, May 17, AD 2016 11:02am

I wonder if Venezuela has a 2nd Amendment. Probably not. Socialism and Communism don’t like armed citizens. Come to think of it, neither do Democrats.

Penguin Fan
Penguin Fan
Tuesday, May 17, AD 2016 12:05pm

Correa, not Cortes, in Ecuador. Stupid phone auto correct. Colombia found one of the FARC leaders in Ecuador not long ago, with his laptop that incriminate a bunch of others. Rather than be embarrassed, Correa went off in a tirade against Colombia.

Chavez looked up to Castro, who has been the Latin American cancer for over 50 years. The US should have taken him out long ago.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Tuesday, May 17, AD 2016 2:58pm

A case can be made to prove that the Obama regime did to the US military officer corps the same as Stalin and Chavez did to theirs.
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Mac, Your comment above identifies the left’s motivation for (incrementally) confiscating guns. If they cared about children’s lives, they would not murder 1,500,000 unborn each year.
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The left doesn’t have the stones to follow through. Case in point, CT and NY in knee-jerks after the December 2013 elementary school massacre banned all so-called assault rifles. About 400,000 ”assault rifles” remain in hands of CT and NY citizens’ and the states can’t do anything. Maybe that’s why the NY thug/governor and the idiots he has legislating NY wrote in the law a prohibition against assessing the law’s effectiveness. In NY, almost all county sheriffs refuse to enforce. Come and take them.
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They say you won’t deport 11.,000,000 illegals. Some 80,000,000 Americans say they can’t take their weapons.

Philip
Philip
Wednesday, May 18, AD 2016 3:10am

A month ago on you tube I was watching a clip from wearechange.org; 11:55sec. The gang violence has escalated to the point that you do not go out at night. The “gun free zones,” are set ups. The thugs rule.

The empty promises.
The empty shelves.

This is the future Bernie Sanders has in mind for America.

Steve Phoenix
Steve Phoenix
Wednesday, May 18, AD 2016 8:52am

Yes, Philip. closely related, in fact a necessary component of communist regimes, is the hysterical gun control arguments at the same time as the destruction of the police forces,(blaming them for “institutional racism” is the common chant here; Lenin and Trotsky assailed them as Tsarist oppressors), what Rahm Emmanuel has called “the police going into fetal position.” (And he is surprised at this?) In Venezuela, the police have mostly fled the streets from the angry mobs: but sooner or later, an arsenal is going to be broken into (just as the arsenal at Paris was breached in 1789, or the SS Peter and Paul Fortress at St Petersburg in 1917, and hell will break loose in Venezuela.

So, what here in the US, on our march to Gomorrah, has now become a huge liability for the left? “The Ferguson Effect”:

https://pjmedia.com/blog/chicago-pd-ferguson-effect/

Heather MacDonald of the LA Times does fair justice to the obvious effect of seven and half years of Obama, Sharpton, and BLM (“Black Lives Matter”) blaming the police for “acting stupidly”:

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-mac-donald-ferguson-effect-in-los-angeles-20160113-story.html

However most of the left at the LA Times, Baltimore Sun, NY Times and Wash Post are in overdrive, defending against placing the Ferguson Effect blame squarely on our fair dictators here at home.

So, each week as Chicago approaches summer and the typically worst time of year for homicides and violent crime, already in May multiple numbers of Chicagoans are dying, not because of racism of course but due to a neutered police force, as Obama and Rahm have desired, Both in Venezuela and in US major cities, more gun control “to control crime”—what Hillary has already said she would do when elected Tsarina.

So, on the highway to Venezuelan collapse, the other chess pieces here at home are being martialed into position.

Steve Phoenix
Steve Phoenix
Wednesday, May 18, AD 2016 9:05am

About a year ago, I, in my naïve foolishness, thought I could quickly “zip in” and see the recently restored Rockefeller Chapel and surrounding architecture at the Univ of Chicago campus.

I knew from others that it was in a nasty part of town, crime-wise:
But as I zipped up Michigan Avenue in the rental car, even at 9am on a Sunday AM (I thought, based on Phoenix and LA, all or most of the crack addicts and druggies would still be zonked out), the walking dead and zombies crowding around every stop light and many of the stopped cars (the lights are not timed so you can “zip”) told me this was an extremely bad idea, even at this hour. As most familiar with this area know, all the street corners are controlled by the patchwork of drug gangs, and their lookouts with their cell phones and their associates are visibly everywhere.

I quickly “zipped” north instead to Lakeshore Drive, abandoning the idea of visiting U of Chicago, and got our little clan out of there. About a week later a woman and her children were assaulted—she as dragged out of her car— in broad daylight at the U of Chicago campus. How unsurprised was I. [My only advantage was that everyone always says I look like a cop (Is that an advantage any longer?) and the stock rental car could have helped to add to the momentary hesitation, as people pile into the street next to your car and aggressively panhandle. ]
….
And I, because I was travelling, had no gun. All of them (discerning the bulges in their pants pockets) obviously did, in this most gun-controlled, Communist-leaning city. Ahhh,, no police anywhere of course.

Expect the gangs and the BLM crowd to be unleashed this election summer, when they get their orders from on high on their Obama-phones.

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