Benjamin Maggi, an Argentine, wrote the comments in italics below. I respond after the italics.
Little of what Benjamin says is true.
Chavez himself plotted a coup to overthrown the government in the late 90’s
Now that is true, but he was arrested and put in jail for that and the coup was so popular that he was soon elected afterwards.
Venezuela suffers form one of the worlds more unstable economies with inflation ramping up above 40%
The Venezuelan economy is not unstable at all, and inflation has been high in Venezuela for decades during regimes of the right, left and center.
some basic needs products like toilet paper, baby diapers and condoms are scare
Ok look, the economy is in private hands. All of these products are produced by the private sector. In economics, this is called a market failure. In capitalist economics, market failures signify a failure in the economic system. They do not have often under capitalism, because when demand dramatically exceeds supply, producers simply ramp up demand or others get into the industry to fill the demand and the demand deficit is corrected.
Since the Chavez regime does not produce one condom, roll of toilet paper of diaper, what is the reason for the shortages? The reason is that the private sector fascists, who you support, are not producing enough condoms, rolls of toilet paper and diapers to satisfy demand. Now why would anyone do that?
The reason is that these fascists are deliberately under-producing these products in order to create artificial shortages as part of an economic war to bring down the government and make the economy scream. This is the same US imperialist philosophy that was used by Kissinger in the 1970’s to bring down the Allende regime. A lot of the goods are also being smuggled over to Colombia where can sell them for more money.
Since the private sector is sabotaging the economy, you need to tell me why they are doing so.
food stocks are rationalized people has to wait in line for days to get one liter of oil to cook.
Most food is not rationed. But the state hardly produces any food. The private sector produces all the cooking oil in the country. And there is not enough of it. Another market failure. But why? It makes no sense. Why not make more cooking oil to satisfy demand? The private sector is failing to provide cooking oil for the economy, so it is their failure.
The question is why? The reason for that is that they are deliberately under-producing oil in order to wage economic war on the state and bring down Maduro. For most goods, there is no shortage. For other goods, the shortage is an illusion. Yes there is a milk shortage, but pre-Chavez, it was so expensive that hardly anyone could buy it. Now almost everyone can afford milk, and there are shortages.
But once again, why? Why doesn’t the private sector produce more milk? Because of the economic war. Some foods are also imported, but the state does not import food. The private sector imports food. The state gives the private sector US dollars, which are hard to come by, in order to import food. But the private sector uses those dollars to sell smuggled goods to Colombia or to invest overseas.
In other words, they take those dollars in bad faith. They are supposed to use them to import food and instead they use them for other things. Which is causing food shortages. Once again, the private sector is causing the shortages.
Current president Maduro as well as Chavez empowered civil militia, that effectively work as hired mercenaries.
They don’t do much of anything other than defend their home neighborhoods. That’s it.
The riots that you mentioned where students protesting as well as middle class people, they got butchered over and over…
The riots were plotted by the opposition to be violent from day one. The idea of the riots was to overthrow the government by force since the theme of the riots was that Maduro had stolen the election. Of course he did not. They lost at the ballot box so they were going to try to riot their way into power.
The police were very subdued in fighting the rioters. In fact, almost no police force anywhere on Earth would be so restrained against violent rioters. 70% of the deaths were caused by the rioters. The rioters did not get butchered. There were millions of them, and and 11 of them died. Some butchery. A lot of the rioters were armed with guns and bombs, which they used.
During the time oil prices where above 120usd a barrel Venezuela did little to improve life quality instead all the money went to a few hands as usual.
Actually there is no evidence for this whatsoever, and in fact there is tremendous evidence for to the contrary. Chavez has helped the poor and working class masses so much that he got re-elected nine times. Chavista mayors and governors win over and over. Maduro won. The majority loves the Chavistas. Why? Because they help the poor and working class majority whereas the opposition will not do anything for them because the opposition is only for the rich.
It’s funny how square some people is specially when defending the impossible just to justify an ideology in this case left revolution….
Actually this is one of the best Left revolutions to support because it is so moderate and easy to justify.
While the Chavez family publicly talks about the bolivars an revolution they got incredible rich !
Some of Chavez’ relatives live in another state where they are part of the ruling families of the state. They were rich before Chavez got in. They are still rich, but these rich people support Chavez. Chavez never saw a nickel of their money. It’s not his money.
Venezuela is a bad example of socialism, is think you need to look closely at the facts.
On the contrary, Venezuela is one of the finest examples of socialism on Earth.
