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Page added on May 18, 2016
Venezuela crisis deepens
It was around noon when a food truck rolled up to a Venezuelan state-subsidized supermarket in the town of Guarenas just east of the capital.
But, to the fury of the long line of people waiting out front, the cargo wasn’t unloaded. Instead soldiers took it away.
“We want food!” the crowd roared in protest, to no avail. Some tried to run after the truck.
Under the state of emergency imposed by President Nicolas Maduro, the military, along with government-organized civilian committees, ensures that food packets are delivered door-to-door in order to — as officials say — cut out black market operators.
Haydee Teran, a 48-year-old housewife who had been lining up for hours at the supermarket hoping to buy some scarce essentials, said Guarenas officials ordered that half of the food deliveries heading to shops and markets be instead diverted for local distribution.
“This decree isn’t solving anything,” Teran told AFP, showing a video of the incident she posted on Twitter.
“What the people want is food. There hasn’t been looting, but we are closing the streets to protest,” she said.
– Anger at Maduro –
Yanina Diaz, a friend waiting with Teran in front of a bakery, said authorities were especially on guard over events in Guarenas. The town was among the first to see violence in riots that broke out in Venezuela in 1989 over a gasoline price hike.
Many frustrated Venezuelans blame the government for the hardship they are enduring.
The president however says he is fighting an “economic war” being waged by Venezuela’s “fascist” right supported by the “imperialist” United States.
Since Maduro decreed the state of emergency, political tensions in the country have ratcheted up.
The opposition, which controls the National Assembly and is aiming to oust the president through a recall referendum, was leading nationwide protests on Wednesday.
But in the ever-longer lines in front of many supermarkets, the mood was of resignation and criticism of Maduro.
“What is he going to do with the emergency decree? What he needs to do is get food in,” said Migdalia Lopez, 51.
She had been in the street protesting, but had to take a break to line up and wait to buy bread.
Unlike Teran and Diaz, Lopez described herself as a former partisan of the socialist “revolution” started by late leader Hugo Chavez and continued by Maduro.
“Here in Guarenas there were revolutionary supporters. But now the people no longer want revolution — what they want is food,” she said.
“The people are going hungry. We are tired of lining up, of killing ourselves for just a carton of eggs or some bread,” she said.
– Hundreds of protests –
The path the Venezuelan government has taken promises no respite.
Although blessed with the biggest proven oil reserves in the world, the South American nation is becoming an economic wasteland.
Last year, Venezuela’s gross domestic product shrank 5.7 percent, and this year the GDP is expected to contract eight percent.
Uncontrolled inflation is decimating the value of local bolivares every day. After climbing to 180 percent in 2015, this year inflation is expected to soar to as much as 700 percent, the highest on the planet.
The government insists on an official exchange rate of 10 bolivares per dollar. But the black market rate — the one companies use to buy and sell goods — is 1,000 per dollar.
Some incidents of looting have been reported around Venezuela, but most people are enduring the spiral into chaos with bitterness.
Protests mostly take the form of blocking roads and spreading videos and photos of discontent online.
The head of the Venezuelan Observatory for Social Conflict, Marco Ponce, told AFP that his non-governmental organization had counted 107 instances of looting and attempted looting in the first three months of the year. There have been hundreds of small street protests, he said.
Seventy percent of Venezuelans want a change of government, according to a poll by the firm Datanalisis.
Lopez is among them, but she doesn’t want to see current opposition figures take over, remembering some of them as greedy and arrogant when they held the reins before Chavez’s rule.
“It’s best that others step in to govern — but not those squalid bastards, not them either,” she said.
A man in line yells out sardonically that “the socialist bread is coming,” provoking a ripple of comments and grumbles from others in the long bread line.
“They are going to fall! They are going to fall!” residents chant from windows above the bakery.
37 Comments on "Venezuela crisis deepens"
dave thompson on Wed, 18th May 2016 1:02 pm
Venezuela is another fine example of how American imperialism rules the world. Piss off the multinational corporate elite and suddenly your economy goes to hell.
JuanP on Wed, 18th May 2016 1:27 pm
Russia becomes bread basket of the world by exporting more wheat than any other country in the world thanks to sanctions!
https://www.rt.com/business/343441-russian-economy-oil-agriculture/
Russian domestic tourism grew by 30% this year, too!
JuanP on Wed, 18th May 2016 1:38 pm
The USA destroys every country it can control, and Venezuela’s destiny was sealed when Chavez came to power and resisted the Americans. Chavez and Maduro have been terrible managers and made things worse. The oligarchs are even worse.
Venezuela is brutally overpopulated and its population needs to be literally decimated before some kind of balance can be reached, if it is ever possible.
Coming to a neighborhood near you! Venezuela has gone from decline to collapse as will happen everywhere. Learn about what is happening there and prepare yourself accordingly.
JuanP on Wed, 18th May 2016 1:40 pm
I meant to say that the USA attempts to destroy every country it CAN’T control. đ
Davy on Wed, 18th May 2016 1:49 pm
Most of Venezuela’s problems are its own. I am not denying the interference of the US government and multinationals in the world. That is a significant problem in the world but in the case of Venezuela they broke away from the system and did it their way. It is their corruption and inept economic management that ruined their country. They had the support of Russia, China, Iran, and Cuba and look where that got them. They had many years of high oil prices that the Chavistias pissed away on cronyism and stupid international games of potitical intrigue. You can’t blame the US for everything and be objective.
Hello on Wed, 18th May 2016 2:11 pm
dave thompson
You are indeed a professional moron. At first I thought you might be a hobbyist. But not true, you’re professional.
JuanP on Wed, 18th May 2016 2:11 pm
Of course, the USA had nothing to do with Venezuela’s problems. đ LOL!
JuanP on Wed, 18th May 2016 2:14 pm
And the USA had nothing to do with the Uruguayan military dictatorship I grew up in. And those military torturers, rapists, kidnappers, and murderers where not trained in the School of the Americas.
The USA has done nothing but try to help the world, but we are such ungrateful beasts!
JuanP on Wed, 18th May 2016 2:16 pm
Where would the world be without the USA?
Lawfish1964 on Wed, 18th May 2016 2:33 pm
What does it matter what the cause is? Venezuela is a pretty large microcosm of the rest of the developed world. 95% of people in the developed world depend on “the system” to provide food. When the economy collapses, no more food. That is a true SHTF situation.
I would like to say I’m at least partially prepared in that a fair percentage of the food I eat is produced by me, but I’m afraid in a SHTF situation, my stuff gets stolen from me. Hungry people will do anything to get food. In the coming weeks, it’s going to get truly ugly down there as people start starving to death.
Davy on Wed, 18th May 2016 2:57 pm
I think you can talk all day long about the US messing things up in the Ukraine but Venezuela is different because Chavez made a clean break with the US and effectively neutralized the opposition. Chavez also effectively created an anti-US coalition. He did some brilliant maneuvers but where he failed was at home with the basics of good governance and proper economic policy. He got stupid rich on high oil prices and pursued too many grandios pet projects.
Go Speed Racer on Wed, 18th May 2016 3:15 pm
Once th grocery store is empty, they can protest. Like, they could blow up the grocery store. After all that fun, and with no more store to blow up,they might start thinking about growing the food in small personal community projects.
However that would require doing work, and nobody does that anymore. So the end result will be really skinny hungry people who play video games all day.
dave thompson on Wed, 18th May 2016 6:13 pm
Lots of great and thoughtful remarks.
makati1 on Wed, 18th May 2016 6:18 pm
Go Speed, your view of the world is very very narrow if you think no one works anymore in other countries. You are looking at it like a true dumbed down, fat, lazy American. Most of the world’s 7+ billion work a lot harder than you ever have. Get a pass port and visit some other countries and see for yourself.
makati1 on Wed, 18th May 2016 6:28 pm
JuanP, I like your sarcasm…
“Where would the world be without the USA?”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/a-timeline-of-cia-atrocities/5348804
And this was AFTER the time of American colonizing of other countries like the Ps.
Anonymous on Wed, 18th May 2016 6:35 pm
The uS has been actively sabotaging Venualuals economy for years now. But the thing is, they haven’t exactly been doing it alone. washingdum has many ‘local’ operatives working with them to accomplish this. The local neo-liberal elites on the uS payroll play a significant role in advancing washingdums agenda for that country.
uS regime change hardly confines itself to political machinations. We all know uS conducts economic warfare in tandem. Broad-spectrum interference and all that, right? Venuualiza has been under illegal uS sanctions(yea those again), for years now.
Any exceptionalist that claims the uS is a bad boy(occasionally), then tries to utterly nullify that by shifting the bulk of the blame to back to ‘local corruption’ is just being disingenuous, and knowingly so. Actually, there is an element of truth in that claim. There IS local corruption, but its the corruption of the local uS backed neo-liberal elites.
Apneaman on Wed, 18th May 2016 6:41 pm
Americans trying to down play and rationalize their empires global crimes. Fucking with other peoples is what empires do and I bet we don’t even know the half of it. A “Wealth Pump” the wizard Greer calls them. It’s a peculiar thing that so many mericans want the benefits of empire AND to be loved at the same time. That’s some cognitive dissonance writ large.
makati1 on Wed, 18th May 2016 7:01 pm
I am glad my personal timeline has me past the child raising years. I thought the 70s, 80s and 90s were bad, but now has to be horrendous for a father/mother trying to provide for, protect and educate, kids in America.
Do you take the easy way out and just let their minds be twisted into the sheeple mold provided by TPTB or do you try to give them a real education and ability to think for themselves? Including religion?
Do you deny them a personal connection to the internet’s propaganda/porn (Smartphone, etc.) with upgrades every business cycle?
How financially secure is the home they live in? Are they “latch key kids” because both parents work to pay the bills? Or one step from homeless because the house they live in is already “underwater”?
These are things that most of us did not have to deal with in the last century when things were still rational. Now…???
makati1 on Wed, 18th May 2016 7:23 pm
Supporting my above comment…
” âWe must start with the children â the seed corn â in order to grow them into what we wish.â -Adolf Hitler speaking in the Nuremburg Rallies
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-18/sculpting-public-opinion-birth-death-schools-media-complicit-destruction-nation
‘Sculpting Public Opinion From Birth To Death: “Schools & Media Complicit In The Destruction Of This Nation”‘
makati1 on Wed, 18th May 2016 7:41 pm
And the beat goes on…
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/05/u-s-government-corrupt-ever.html
âThere Has Never Been A Time, However, When The Government Of The United States Was So Perversely And Systematically Dedicated To Special Interests, Earmarks, Side Deals, Log-Rolling, Vote-Trading, And Sweetheart Dealsâ
The US is Number One! LMAO
Davy on Wed, 18th May 2016 8:01 pm
Makati Bill, get your head out of your ass, Speeder is being Speeder which means he is joking around. A little humor might do you good.
sidzepp on Wed, 18th May 2016 8:02 pm
Thanks for the link Mak. In the editing process of a novel that deals with political manipulation and the failure of the media to keep it place as the fourth estate.
Go Speed Racer on Wed, 18th May 2016 8:06 pm
Makita, Davy, yeah, it’s all BS man, and with Trump running against Hillary, what else have we got, other than BS these days.
:O) :O) :O)
JuanP on Wed, 18th May 2016 8:40 pm
Davy, what brilliant things did Chavez do? I can’t think of one. Chavez’s heart may have been in the right place, but he lacked the intelligence, education, and common sense necessary to be a good leader, much less a brilliant one. He was a terrible economic manager. He did manage to raise the quality of life, life expectancy, and literacy of the Venezuelans for a while, but he didn’t do anything brilliant, he just redistributed the nation’s wealth a little more equitably while he could.
And, of course we don’t expect you to accept the USA’s role in Venezuela. Every member of this forum knows you are extremely biased and irrational where your beliefs and opinions regarding the USA are concerned. It’s sad, but there is nothing we can do to help you. We already tried.
JuanP on Wed, 18th May 2016 8:54 pm
Go speed “… they might start thinking about growing the food in small personal community projects.”
They probably will start growing their own food once they go hungry, but very few will start beforehand. In Cuba, during the Special Period after the USSR’s dissolution, Cubans lost 20 pounds on average over a period of two years. Now Cuba is a leading organic food producer thanks to the success of its “aeropĂłnicos”, as their organic community gardens are called.
Unfortunately, Venezuela’s later support interrupted the process and prevented Cuba from becoming truly food self sufficient. Many of those gains have been lost in the meantime, but Cubans are healthier to this day thanks to the fat they lost and their healthier diets during the Special Period.
joe on Thu, 19th May 2016 1:54 am
Take a good look. This is how you trade boycott a country guys. This is also what happens when the rich and the poor cant live with each other. The rich of Venezuela have gone cap in hand to the US for help and got it. When a social contract is absent or in trouble, then you get this.
makati1 on Thu, 19th May 2016 4:49 am
We can only hope it gets no worse than this in America…but the war drums are getting louder.
“British General Says A Nuclear War With Russia In 2017 Is “Entirely Plausible””
“NATO Announces War Policy Against Russia”
“Chinese Fighter Jets Fly Within 50 Feet Of US Spy Plane Near China.”
“Military Escalation: NATO-Russia War Tensions Laid Bare at Washington Summit”
“Obama Ratchets-Up to Invade Russia”
“Obama and His Neocons Ready to Risk World War III in the South China Sea”
“Russia to revive missile trains as U.S. launches European defense system”
And on and on…
If you think these are exaggerations, maybe you should study some history, especially the real causes of WW1 and WW2. Especially look at who expects to profit from another big (last) war. The US profited big time from both and was a large part of their happening in the first place. The chaos today is bringing huge profits to the same industries. America is a rogue country that will soon be put down by the rest of the world. Hopefully before the nukes fly.
Davy on Thu, 19th May 2016 6:32 am
Juan, OK, letâs lower from brilliant to strong changes. I felt at the time Chavez was in his rise to power he was redistributing wealth to the countries poor at a time most places were going in the other direction. I also at the time admired how he flip the finger to the US and the Miami cabal of Venezuelans who desired to destabilize and turn back his accomplishments. He was able to break away from the US yoke and pursue his own foreign policy which succeeded in distancing all of South America from the US except maybe Columbia. Look where that got your inept continent of poor governance. He managed to bring together anti-American coalition that had substance. Those achievements are worth admiration. This was revolutionary actions and not an easy task. It took true leadership to achieve these difficult results except that this revolution didnât practice restraint and reality testing and eventually as many revolutions fissile out into failure from corruption and bad policy.
I am looking at these things objectively and in balance unlike the extremist anti-Americans where everything is about âeither orâ, âwinners and losersâ, and bad or good. It is clear that corruption, oil price decline, and climate change are conspiring to bring down the Venezuela. Most of it is corruption because a better invested Venezuela would have weathered this storm. I have watched over the years as Venezuela nationalized and spit in the face of all the nationals who came to do business in Venezuela. In the latter stages there were few American companies there. Venezuela became American non-gratis. This was about Venezuela thinking they could do it their way and not the global way just because they had oil.
The anti-American extremist talk about how Americans are responsible for everything that is bad in a country is lazy intellectualism. This board is replete with this extremism along with fuzzy math. How hard is it to blame and finger point? How hard is it to do that when the sheeple extremist readers and band of extremist brothers engage and revel in it? What we have daily on this board is an orgy of hate in extended comments of tabloid and propaganda speak. It really is sickening when one cares about the truth. Now more than ever we need the truth to guide us as the world unravels.
The anti-Americans here bitch, moan, and complain about non-science but only when it fits their agenda. When they must engage in the scientific process we get a double standard when inconvenient topics pop up. These topics are mainly those that discount and discredit their anti-Americanism. Anything American is looked at in the extreme and anything non-American is looked at with a soft avoidance of the inconvenient facts. I need only point back to the issues of the dollar and the Brics how the Anti-Americans failed miserably with that message. We were supposed to see the US crash and burn with a rising Bric phoenix and now the US is the least dirty shirt âLMFAO bitchesâ. IOW, the extremist anti-Americans here are lying to themselves and the board. These lies are subtle and evasive. It is not false facts it is the false package and delivery of the message. I revel every day that I can spit balance in the eyes of the extremist here. Extremist hate balance because it is just another inconvenient incongruous juxtaposition that destroys their message. I love throwing cold water on what would be a completely one sided board.
Boat on Thu, 19th May 2016 9:03 am
“The anti-American extremist talk about how Americans are responsible for everything that is bad in a country is lazy intellectualism.”
Anybody that reads your posts could easily say you spew anti-American extremist rhetoric.
Whether you like it or not it takes economic activity for a country to be healthy. To eliminate the US or the free trading world from your list of options is very short sighted. Poor politics. Venezuela is a perfect example. You call Putin a master mind? All he has done is hurt the Russian economy and it’s people.
makati1 on Thu, 19th May 2016 9:15 am
Boat, when your country is pure evil, it does not deserve to survive, nor the blind flag waving sheeple who support it.
Russia is doing quite well thank you. But all you read is Imperial propaganda, not real facts. Too bad. Blindness is going to get you killed.
Boat on Thu, 19th May 2016 9:32 am
mak,
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20160519/1039889596/china-refugee-friendly-survery.html
The world is not filled with hate like people like you would want us to believe. Are you Russian? They rank the lowest on the chart.
Boat on Thu, 19th May 2016 9:39 am
mak,
“Russia is doing quite well thank you. But all you read is Imperial propaganda, not real facts. Too bad. Blindness is going to get you killed”.
Sputnik is propaganda? Give me a link with Russian truth. Give me a Russian link for their government spending.
GregT on Thu, 19th May 2016 10:16 am
“Whether you like it or not it takes economic activity for a country to be healthy.”
Whether you like it or not Boat, human economic activity is destroying the Earth’s natural ecosystems. Countries are not necessary for human survival, the planet Earth is. Economic activity does not trump environmental sustainability.
joe on Thu, 19th May 2016 10:20 am
Not in this life Greg T.
Sad.
makati1 on Thu, 19th May 2016 10:30 am
Boat, the Russians are sitting on most of the real resources left on the planet. They are not starving or in poverty. The Empire wants those resources so bad it might risk a nuclear war to get them. That should scare you shitless.
The Russians are more advanced than America at this point in time. They are how we get our scientists to the space station. The Us buys their rocket engines because they are better and more reliable than anything the Us makes. They accurately fire a missile a thousand miles from it’s target and hit it every time. They proved that in Syria. Their missiles can leave Moscow and 15 minutes later hit New York City or Silicon valley in Cali. That too should scare you shitless.
Suck on that Imperial teat and drown in it’s propaganda and watch the mushroom clouds from that ‘failing country’ light up your cities when it has finally had enough of American “exceptionalism”.
Most Americans are so gullible and stupid, and you are the poster boy.
Boat on Thu, 19th May 2016 12:00 pm
1″Whether you like it or not Boat, human economic activity is destroying the Earthâs natural ecosystems.
2Countries are not necessary for human survival, the planet Earth is.
3Economic activity does not trump environmental sustainability”.
1. Everybody knows that.
2. If that is true, how many people don’t live in a country.
3. Your wrong, just like you, the world buys shyt.
Safe on Thu, 19th May 2016 6:26 pm
Venezuela pretty much scr#wed itself. No US necessary. We shall scr#w ourselves thank you!