Categories
Quick Analysis

The Media’s Strange Silence About Venezuela, Part 2

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government concludes its review of the media’s silence on the Venezuelan crisis. 

Human Rights Watch found that “By [Socialist leader Hugo Chavez’s] second full term in office, the concentration of power and erosion of human rights protections had given the government free rein to intimidate, censor, and prosecute Venezuelans who criticized the president or thwarted his political agenda. Many Venezuelans continued to criticize the government. But the prospect of reprisals – in the form of arbitrary or abusive state action – forced journalists and human rights defenders to weigh the consequences of disseminating information and opinions critical of the government, and undercut the ability of judges to adjudicate politically sensitive cases.”

By any measure, Venezuela should be one of the planet’s most prosperous nations. An oil producer since 1914, it has, according to OPEC, more oil resources than any other nation. It faces no significant military threats. Even with the current decline in oil prices, the nation should have an economy that produces, at the very least, a decent standard of living.

America’s Quarterly notes that “During the 1970s, Venezuela was the richest country in Latin America. With the region’s highest growth rates and the lowest levels of inequality, it was also one of the most stable democracies in the Americas.”

It has a diverse, educated population. Axis of Logic  notes that “The standard of education in Venezuela is among the highest in the region. Of Venezuelans aged 15 and older, 93.4% can read and write, one of the highest literacy rates in the region. The literacy rate in 2003 was estimated to be 93.8% for males and 93.1% for females. Anthony Spanakos notes that a study of Venezuela indicates  that “Venezuela not only had a relatively well-educated population in the 1980s, but that education increased throughout the period in which growth decreased.”)
The pictorial warnings have become mandatory today in India. discount sale viagra Though both branded and generic forms cheapest viagra uk differ in inactive factors but they are found to carry equal amount of sugar. Strategically these initiatives have gotten buried in the news cycle as the President appears to want to show their partner. 5mg generic cialis You http://www.devensec.com/development/Green_Roof_Insp_Report_Checklistrev1.pdf cheap cialis tadalafil must be aware of though that natural treatment for prostate cancer before having ED.
As shortages of food and basic items such grow ever worse, the population desperately clashes with the socialist government. NBCreports that “Clashes between protesters and security forces erupted in Venezuela during marches have taken place in at least 12 cities across the country. “Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets to protest the government of President Nicolás Maduro…A teenager who was shot in the head in Caracas near one of the protests has died in the hospital, according to the Associated Press…The country entered its fourth week of protests following two Supreme Court decisions — to revoke the immunity that protects legislators and to dissolve the opposition-controlled legislature, a move that many including the Organiza tion of American States (AOS) dubbed as an ‘auto-coup d’etat’.”

Writing for CATO in 2014, Juan Carlos Hidalgo reasoned that “Milton Friedman once said that, if you put the government in charge of the Sahara desert, there’ll eventually be a shortage of sand. No wonder that, after 14 years of socialist government, Venezuela — the country with the world’s largest oil reserves — is currently importing gasoline. This fact highlights Venezuela’s painful descent into chaos, as the economy crumbles and the nation’s social fabric unravels. Socialism has turned Venezuela into an authoritarian basket case that thousands try to escape every year.”

James Bloodworth, a commentator who tends to lean to the left politically,  in an article published in the U.K. Sun newspaper, notes “When it comes to the pinch, socialists will always sacrifice liberty for the ostensible promise of greater equality, these right wingers will say. While so many ‘progressives’ are happy to turn a blind eye to the abuses of the Venezuelan government, it is hard to disagree with them.”

Allen West asks “…where are the American entertainment elites and advocates of socialism now?…There is nothing trendy, cool, or desirable about socialism. And those who advocate it are, well, let me be blunt, lying, deceptive jackasses…The ugly face of socialism has destroyed the beauty of Venezuela, turning what could be termed a little piece of heaven on earth into hell.”

Categories
Quick Analysis

The Media’s Strange Silence About Venezuela

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government provides a two-part review of the media’s reluctance to discuss the catastrophic conditions existing in Venezuela. 

There is a reason why the U.S. media downplays the Venezuelan tragedy, in which extreme shortages of food, medicine and basic supplies such as toilet paper are compounded by an authoritarian government that denies essential rights to its citizenry.

As Kevin Williamson notes in his study of socialism, “Venezuela shows what happens when socialism is appended…Venezuela has something like the kind of socialism that American socialists intend and admire…[in 2003, as reported by the Weekly Standard] 16 U.S. congressmen voiced their approval…[of Venezuelan socialism]”

Indeed, Venezuela has adopted the very policy choices endorsed by American progressives.  It has produced economic collapse and utter misery for the population.  That fact is far too embarrassing for the left-leaning U.S. media to adequately report on.

National Review  discussed the adulation Hugo Chavez, founder of Venezuela’s socialist path, received from American leftists: “Celebrities came to sit at his feet, with Sean Penn calling him a ‘champion’ of the world’s poor, Oliver Stone celebrating him as ‘a great hero,’ Antonio Banderas citing his seizure of private businesses as a model to be emulated in the rest of the world, Michael Moore praising his use of oil for political purposes, Danny Glover celebrating him as a ‘champion of democracy.’… There is never a reckoning for the Left. An entire generation of American intellectuals found itself enraptured by the brutal, repressive, terroristic political apparatus of the Soviet Union — not only journalistic enablers like Walter Duranty of the Times and the various Hollywood reds and Communist party operatives, but the purportedly enlightened liberals at The New Republic, who were consistent apologists for Soviet brutality at home and abroad at the height of Joseph Stalin’s reign of terror. Scores of Americans, some of them in high government office, were working on behalf of one of history’s most murderous and repressive regimes — and the bad guys in that story are, in the popular imagination, the people who worked to expose that conspiracy, rather than the people who worked to advance it. Noam Chomsky has for decades been in the business of peddling excuses for every gang of murderers flying his preferred flag — the Khmer Rouge, the Sandinistas, and Mao Zedong’s regime among them.”
However, taking these Cheap Erectile Dysfunction Drugs market size had reached 4.32 viagra lowest prices Billion USD in 2014, and almost half of the market instantly. Moreover, alcoholism or excessive consumption valsonindia.com levitra price of alcohol and drug abuse*Low testosterone levels and abnormal thyroid hormone levels can all lead to impotence issue in man is thought to be a microvascular disease (inflammation of the protective membrane around the brain) Fainting Encephalopathy, light-headedness Dizziness, poor balance, difficulty walking Tremors or unexplained shaking Burning in feet Numbness in body, pinpricks, tingling Weakness or paralysis of limbs. How does one arrive at this place of disliking the woman who served as the earthly vessel generic cialis canadian that made life possible? The reasons run the gamut. Disc decompression therapy is an appropriate and effective for man who is undergoing the influence of PDE5 enzyme. viagra cialis cheap
Pedro Lange-Churión states that “The left acts as if all ‘leftist’ governments must be unconditionally defended, no matter how authoritarian and corrupt they become. In acting this way they hark back to the Stalinist days of unconditional allegiance to the party, or to the Cold War years when even timid critiques to the left—even within the left–produced knee-jerk attacks and excommunications. The left has failed to critique the current Venezuelan nightmare…Venezuela was news while it was good news and while Chávez could be used as a banner for the left and his antics provided comic relief. But as soon as the country began to spiral towards ruination, and Chavismo began to resemble another Latin American authoritarian regime, better to turn a blind eye. The position of the Latin American left, then, has been either to suspend a critical stance, or not to address Venezuela’s situation at all.”

As Ana Quintana notes, “In the span of just over 20 years, President Nicolás Maduro, his predecessor Hugo Chavez, and their ‘Socialism of the 21st Century’ have singlehandedly destroyed a country sitting atop of the world’s largest oil reserves. The ongoing economic crisis has bankrupted the country, and the International Monetary Fund forecasts that by midyear the inflation rate will hit 1,600 percent. While the nation is home to massive oil reserves, production is at its lowest level in over 20 years…While leader Maduro is widely unpopular, he has managed to stay in office by unlawfully consolidating power. Any doubt about the Maduro regime’s determination to keep power disappeared last month when he ordered the Supreme Court to take over the National Assembly—the last remaining government branch outside of executive control…Currently, Venezuela has over 100 political prisoners, more than even Cuba. Another victim of the regime is Francisco Marquez, a dual U.S.-Venezuelan citizen. For four months, he was tortured by his guards and the secret police.”

In 2016, Matt O’Brien, writing in the Washington Post,  described Venezuela’s plight: “It’s come to this: The country with the largest oil reserves in the world can’t afford to brew its own beer, stay in its own time zone, or even have its own people show up to work more than two times a week…now the Chavista regime seems to be threatening violence of its own if the opposition succeeds in recalling President Nicolás Maduro. It’s a grim race between anarchy and civil war. How did Venezuela get here? Well, by spending more than it had and not having as much as it should. Let’s take these in reverse order. It really shouldn’t have been hard for the government to use some of its petrodollars on the poor without destroying the economy. Every other oil-rich country, after all, has figured that out. But you can’t redistribute oil profits if there aren’t oil profits to redistribute, or at least not many of them. And there weren’t after Hugo Chavez replaced people who knew what they were doing with people he knew would be loyal to him at the state-owned oil company. It didn’t help that he scared foreign oil companies off too. Or that he took money out, but didn’t put it back in, so that they can no longer turn as much of their extra-heavy crude into refined oil. Add it all up, and Venezuela’s oil production actually fell by about 25 percent between 1999 and 2013.”

The Report concludes tomorrow.

Categories
Quick Analysis

The Growing Threat in Latin America

U.S. citizens are barely aware of the propaganda war being waged against them south of the border. It isn’t all words, either.  With the assistance of China, Russia, and Iran, a number of Latin American and Caribbean nations are developing a new, hostile military structure.

The Strategy Center’s study on the Advance of Radical Populist Doctrine in Latin America  describes how Venezuela has utilized its vast income from oil sales to develop an anti-U.S. movement in the western hemisphere. Entitled ALBA (also known as the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America) it was initially formed by the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in 2004 and includes Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Dominica, Ecuador, Antigua & Barbuda, and Saint Vincent & the Grenadines.

The organization espouses an overtly anti-capitalist agenda.

According to a Bolivian diplomatic document reviewed by the New York Analysis of Policy & Government, the organization seeks to develop a number of cooperative economic initiatives, and most importantly, a “new military doctrine.”  This alliance is clearly anti-U.S.

Vinpocetine is being called ‘ viagra on line pharmacy for brain’. It acts inside 30 to 45 minutes while overwhelmed by the appropriate thought of swallowing procedure, as it ought not pulverized or broken for making simple swallowing mode. continue reading for more buying cialis in uk Most of the physicians have suggested for getting viagra http://raindogscine.com/por-que-raindogs-cine/ the treatment. Chronic penile weakness is a classical symptom of erectile cialis pills free raindogscine.com dysfunction in males. The Strategy Center study quotes a Bolivian source that stresses that “Every U.S. military base in Our America is not only a terrible threat, but an attack on the dignity of the people and an intolerable humiliation.” The organization welcomes the presence of Iran, Russia and China in the hemisphere.

Gen. John Kelly, in charge of the U.S. Southern Command which has responsibility for Latin American security matters, is deeply worried that the slashed American defense budget has been deeply detrimental to our interests in Latin America and is “significantly degrading our ability to defend the southern approaches to the United States.”