THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

March 22, 2018

By Ryan Dube, Kejal Vyas and Anatoly Kurmanaev

The country is an economic basket case, but the Socialist rulers keep winning votes by selectively controlling the food supply.

SANTA RITA, Venezuela—Sara Meza is just the kind of voter Venezuela’s opposition could once count on at the ballot box.
A 32-year-old teacher, she’s fed up with President Nicolás Maduro’s government. Her salary has fallen to the equivalent of $2 a month with Venezuela’s currency collapse. She struggles to feed her 10-year-old son and is unable to treat the small tumor on her breast because the health-care system is in shambles.

Still, Ms. Meza voted for the ruling Socialist Party in recent mayoral elections, fearing that otherwise she would have lost her state job and benefits—especially the monthly bags of rice, corn flour and other subsidized food she says keeps her family alive. She also plans to vote for Mr. Maduro in the May 20 presidential election
“If I didn’t vote, there would be trouble, I was told,” she said in this arid town near the Colombian border. “They are playing with people’s hunger.”

Any government would struggle to win elections while presiding over widespread food shortages, inflation expected to reach 13,000% this year, and an economy falling apart so fast that it will soon be half the size it was five years ago.

But the Maduro administration, which has just a 22% approval rating, has developed a broad strategy to prevail through dirty tricks, fear tactics and, crucially, using the lure of food to get the country’s poorest voters to support his administration, pollsters and elections experts in Venezuela say. Last year, the ruling party won three elections for local, state and national bodies.
Food is an enormously powerful weapon in a country where babies die of malnutrition, store shelves are often bare and three-quarters of the population has lost an average of 19 pounds. The grants to millions of poverty-stricken voters might very well ensure his leftist movement runs this country for many years to come.

It broke my heart to read that Maduro was able to so quickly stomp out this first uprising. Perhaps the next group of revolutionaries will gather courage from these ground breakers and build on the start they made, by building a large and strong opposition force that can gain some ground.

Reuters:

BREAKING: Maduro says Venezuela is breaking diplomatic relations with the United States, gives U.S. personnel 72 hours to leave the country.

Quote from Splinter

I'm wondering if the US is waiting for an excuse to take some kind of action. Or they could just conjure something up.

It certainly would provide the president with a change of subject from the Russia investigation. If he (not "the U.S.," but HE) contrives a war with Venezuela, oh, let's see, a couple of months before the 2020 election, then 1) he has a chance of re-election, because in wartime, people stick with the devil they know rather than the one they don't; and 2) because Venezuela couldn't possibly hold up under an attack by the U.S. military, the Commander In Chief is elevated to being a successful wartime president. A double win.

Time to dust off your 22-year-old dvd of Wag the Dog, or watch it on Netflix.

https://www.netflixmovies.com/wag-the-dog-1997

Quote from Splinter

If they did take action, I think it would be more covert, involving the CIA, if they're not there already.

I’m confident that has been happening for a long time. US tax dollars are undoubtedly already being magically transformed into bribes for the Venezuelan military.

Now that our antipathy towards Maduro is out in the open, maybe we can figure out how to get some of that money put into food and medical supplies for the people — and get it TO them.

Quote from Splinter

This is where the security services take you if they don't like your face. Built in the 50s, originally as a shopping mall of sorts, it's now a prison and torture centre.

(I’ve heard of “Country Club” prisons, but until now, not “Shopping Mall” prisons!)