From the (lamentably-furloughed) Diplomad:
The excuses for [Venezuela’s] collapse are numerous, and you can find them in the standard swampy media. My favorite is, of course, that Venezuela was done in by the “collapse” of oil prices: a stupid, lazy lie. According to OPEC data, the average price of a barrel of oil in 1999, the year Chavez took power, was $17.44; the price of oil today is over $68. Only in prog world can that be a collapse. Furthermore, at no time since 1999, has oil gone below the price it was in 1999. During the entire Chavez-Maduro disaster, oil stayed well above the 1999 price.
Of course, the fact that stupid people like Oliver Stone and Sean Penn as well as the evil, self-styled “democratic socialists” like Corbyn and The Bern love this style of government should be proof enough that the whole idea sucks, but there you have it.
A sadly typical progression of Progressives.
When a nation first embraces Socialism, the Western Left is quick to praise all the wonders that Marxism is producing (never mind the fact that it’s propaganda).
Then, when the inevitable decline hits that nation, the Western Left makes excuses.
Finally, when the rotted corpse burst open, and the death and corruption are too big to excuse, the Western Left comes back with “but that’s not real Socialism”. Every. Fucking. Time.
How many more millions must die, starve, be imprisoned, tortured, oppressed before we finally throw that bad 19th century pseudo-scientific cargo cult into the trash where it belongs?
Should be an indication about the political systems is that the guys who came up with them did not succeed. Now some people who implemented them did well.
Capitalism might not be good, but it is the best of a bunch of bad choices. Sink or swim, it is all up to the man in the mirror, (You)