Nope. It is plain old, flea bitten socialism in its worst form. There is nothing about Venezuela that is democratic. Maduro is a dictator as was his predecessor. There will be a revolution soon enough.
Because we shouldn't be doing business with oppressive regimes and it has to start somewhere. As long as we keep electing the people in office that make these decisions we should not expect change in behavior.
Yep, and one of the sectors that the socialists in Venezuela did the most thorough job of screwing up is the agricultural sector. Then they tried to remedy their failed collectivization schemes with brilliant ideas like this: Venezuela's 'Plan Rabbit' encounters 'cultural problem' https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-41265474 Commies + Farms = Mass Starvation
Seems simple enough. needs to stop waging "economic war" that starves children. Incredulously, then blames that gov't they economically war against for the results. Sanctions and promoting others to hop on the Sanctions Bandwagon is an act of war. Moi Is It War With yet?
It is simple but not in the way you think. As with every other socialist basket case before it (USSR, Red China, North Korea, etc.), people are starving in Venezuela on account of the failed collectivization schemes and mismanagement of the economy by the socialist idiots in that country who thought it was a good idea to repeat the mistakes that Stalin, Mao, Kim, Menghistu, Pol Pot, et al, made before them.
When socialists gain power through the democratic process they are democratic socialists. Democracy is not an effective check against tyranny.
And not until then. We will know that Venezuelans have a serious problem with their tyrant when they star acting more like Nicaraguans.
Sanctions have been imposed on some of Maduro's narco people and companies. America has also offered aid for the people. This has been refused. Methinks USA should have no sanctions (this is hard given the nature of Maduro's policies) so that when the country is totally collapsed the Left won't blame the USA. Lifting what sanctions there are won't make much difference anyhow. If America
I can't tell. But I bet there were none when the USSR used famine as a political tool under Lenin and Stalin. I am sure there were no sanctions against Mao in the early 1960's when he starved about 60 million to death. Simply put - socialism is the best way to lose weight. Marxism takes away the farms from their owners, controls what the workers will grow, controls the movement of people, wrecks the economy, provides shoddy tools and destroys all incentives to produce. And that's Venezuela right now. Not US sanctions - that's shifting the blame.
I wouldn't trust any "democratic socialist" as far as I could throw them. Democracy CAN be a check against tyranny IF it is sufficiently established in the culture, ie Great Britain, France etc.. But that takes centuries.
Unchecked democracy is a formula for tyranny. GB, France and the USA are not democracies. "The American revolutionary insistence on the distinction between a republic and a democracy or majority rule hinges on the radical separation of law and power, with clearly recognized different origins, different legitimations, and different spheres of applica- tion." On Revolution, Hannnah Arendt, Penguin Classics, 2006. https://archive.org/stream/OnRevolution/ArendtOn-revolution_djvu.txt
We are not talking about absolute, narrow distinctions. I see democracy as the participation of citizens in their governance. The litmus test IMO is the ability of people to change their govt and express their opinion in opposition to their govt. On this basis I see USA, France etc as being democracies.
What mistake was that? Turning a nation into a Communist Capitalist Dictatorship and not following the true plan of Marx. It was in no way a communist or socialist state..
Do you believe in this idea of the "Precautionary Principle"? It is employed by environmentalists to oppose something if there is any chance an idea might fail.
Maduro didn't gain power through a democratic process. Democracy ended in Venezuela after the first election of Chavez. Chavez became a dictator and passed the baton on to Maduro.
How many internationalized supervised elections have they had in Venezuela since Maduro was first elected?
