|
|
|
Welcome to the World of Pulitzer Prize Winning Political Cartoonist Michael P. Ramirez |
Bolivar 08-27-18
See Michael's latest cartoons .HERE
POSTED ON AUGUST 27, 2018 BY JOHN HINDERAKER POWERLINE
SOCIALISM, THE GREAT DESTROYER Daniel Pipes has a column in the Wall Street Journal on Venezuela which, if you are not a subscriber, you can read a portion of at Pipes’s web site. A key paragraph: The story of Venezuela, brought from affluence to misery by its own madman in authority, makes this point with singular clarity. In 1914, the discovery of oil on Venezuelan land brought the country vast revenues and produced a relatively free economy. By 1950, Venezuela enjoyed the fourth-highest per capita income in the world, behind only the U.S., Switzerland, and New Zealand. As late as 1980, it boasted the world’s fastest growing economy in the 20thcentury. In 2001, Venezuela still ranked as Latin America’s wealthiest country. Today, Venezuela has become the most hellish place on Earth, with its population fleeing to neighboring countries, crime skyrocketing, its kleptocrat rulers kept in power through military force, and its remaining population, having eaten the family pets, hunting rats for dinner. Meanwhile, the American press is touting the rise of socialists as the next big thing in the Democratic Party. Learning from experience has never been a liberal strong point, but this is ridiculous. In the U.K., Jeremy Corbyn has at least taken some well-deserved abuse for his history as a Chavezista. The Sun, Britain’s most popular newspaper, headlines: “WELCOME TO CORBYN HELL–The terrible reality of life inside the Labour leader’s socialist utopia of Venezuela with hyper inflation and millions starving.” Along with photographs of empty grocery store shelves and accounts of misery and starvation, the Sun quotes a Venezuelan: Starving Estella Martinez looks close to breaking point as she stands on a pollution-choked street wearing a headband made of worthless bills. Bent and gaunt, the grandmother has not had a proper meal in days…. Speaking out to The Sun on Sunday, the 68-year-old tore into the failing socialist policies Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn wants to imitate. She said: “I have lived here all of my life and we have never had it so bad. This is a disaster. *** “I just want to get a coffee or something to take away the hunger. I can’t remember when the last time was I had a proper meal.” Asked why she does not spend the folded 100 bolivar banknotes that form a sad tiara around her forehead, the former maid replies: “This money is worthless now because of inflation. “Five years ago 100 bolivars would have been enough to fill my fridge. Today the shops won’t take them as they are worth so little. “If Jeremy Corbyn thinks this is how to run a country he should come to see this place for himself.” To my knowledge, no American newspaper has similarly held Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other socialists within the Democratic Party to account. Michael Ramirez has done so, however. This cartoon is especially entertaining; check out the Karl Marx calendar, the slightly altered Hillary arrow, Elizabeth Warren in full regalia, and more. (ed: see above) Read more at Powerlineblog.com Ocasio-Cortez's socialist fairytale could destroy the American Dream
By Lauren DeBellis Appell | Fox News While President Trump is busy making America great again, Democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – who is expected to win a U.S. House seat in November in a heavily Democratic congressional district in New York City – is calling for policies that would turn the American Dream into the American Nightmare. If you think the “socialist paradise” nations of Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea are the greatest countries on the planet, Ocasio-Cortez is the candidate for you. Today even China and Russia (once part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) are moving their economies away from socialism and toward a hybrid of state control and capitalism in order to build better lives for their people. And Eastern European nations that were once part of or allied with the U.S.S.R. abandoned the failed socialist economic model years ago. Nevertheless, the global failure of socialism hasn’t stopped Ocasio-Cortez from advocating her kooky socialist agenda. She’s promising free college, a government-run health-care system, free housing and the guarantee of a federal job. The 28-year-old candidate acts like she’s the millennial version of Oprah, except there’s one major distinction. All the “free” stuff she’s giving away has to be paid for by someone – and in this case it’s not her. It’s you – the American taxpayer. My mom always said that nothing in life is free. For those who aren’t convinced, look no further than Venezuela to see the catastrophic consequences and havoc the socialism fairytale can unleash on a country. Venezuela’s demise has touched off the inevitable flood of refugees into neighboring countries – a crisis that mirrors the migration of refugees from war-torn Syria and others parts of the Middle East to Central and Western Europe. Some women in Venezuela feel they have no other option but to join the sex trade in Colombia in order to feed their families. A former ballerina, businesswoman and mom of two in Venezuela said: "This is a shameful job but what option do I have? I have to make money to look after my children and feed them. There is nothing in Venezuela.” Another woman, a former hairdresser and mom said: “If things ever get any better in Venezuela, I'd love to set up my own business. Anything would be better. I do this because I have to do this. If I could do something better, I'd do it ... and I'd stop this straight away." The economic collapse in Venezuela has torn families apart and wreaked destruction. Just to survive, Venezuelans are leaving their families and dropping what amounts to two years of their salaries to cross over into Colombia. One woman who left her family said: "There is nothing in Venezuela. We have to do this to get money to live, to give my children a future.” It’s estimated that 45,000 people cross into Colombia over the Simon Bolivar Bridge from Venezuela every day. Some come to get supplies, while some are immigrants wanting to make new lives. Ocasio-Cortez can dream socialist fantasies all she wants while campaigning and giving interviews in the media. But if you believe in reality instead of fantasy, you’ll favor President Trump’s successful economic policies any day, as I do. There’s plenty of evidence that our economy is moving in the right direction under the Trump administration. Hispanic and African-American unemployment are at near all-time lows. Unemployment for women is the lowest it’s been in decades. And we saw the economy surge to a 4.1 percent rate of annualized growth in the past quarter – the fastest in four years. Breaking news: Capitalism works. The strong economy our nation enjoys today contrasts dramatically with the snake oil that Ocasio-Cortez preaches. While the United States enjoys a booming economic recovery, even Venezuela’s socialist President Nicolas Nicolas Maduro admitted his economic model, based on his reign of socialism, has “failed." "The production models we've tried so far have failed and the responsibility is ours, mine and yours," he told his United Socialist Party. Later he went on to say: “Enough with the whining … We need to produce with or without (outside) aggression, with or without blockades, we need to make Venezuela an economic power. No more whining, I want solutions comrades!” If he really wants solutions he should try capitalism. It’s been working for years. Socialism has been tried multiple ways and multiple times since the Russian Revolution in 1917 – and it has failed every single time. Ocasio’s socialist America would bring catastrophe on our families and leave our children picking up the pieces. No one said it better than British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, when she was first running for that job 42 years ago. She said: “Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money.” Venezuela is just the latest proof that the socialist fantasy has inflicted horrific damage on countless families and national economies over the past 100 years. Those who champion such a course for our country ignore facts, history and the very world around them. Venezuela’s nightmare is spreading to its neighbors
By Benny Avni August 23, 2018 | 7:46pm NEW YORK POST After the collapse of Chavism, which way will Latin America turn? It wasn’t long ago that Venezuela, led by a fiery caudillo and dedicated to spreading its brand of populist super-socialism, boosted allies’ economies near and far with petrodollars. Hugo Chavez was spreading his Bolivarian revolution all over and times were good. No más. Spending lavishly to prop up like-minded allies’ hold on power, investing heavily in giveaways at home and neglecting modernization of the aging oil industry did the trick. Venezuela, possessing some of the world’s largest oil reserves, is bankrupt. History-making inflation rates are predicted to reach 1 million percent by year’s end. Supermarket shelves are empty. Hospitals no longer can or will tend to the sick. Gangs roam the streets. Think “Babylon Berlin” — with a sense that “Mad Max” is where things are headed. Horrified Venezuelans — at least those who can — have fled for Colombian border towns and other neighboring countries. Already in a hole, Chavez’s successor, Nicolas Maduro, is digging deeper. Last Friday he announced new economic measures: shaving a few zeroes off the local currency, the Bolivar; sharply raising taxes; significantly upping the minimum wage. Expect further collapse of the remaining local businesses unable to afford the new dictated-from-above wages. Inflation will likely keep rising. It’s not as bad yet in other countries that once enjoyed Venezuela’s largess or followed its model. Some, like Evo Morales’ Bolivia, even boast viable economies. But take Nicaragua. At the height of Venezuela’s spending spree, in 2011, Caracas gave Managua $557 billion worth of subsidized oil. The ever-present local dictator, Daniel Ortega, spent this windfall on social programs to buy votes. Family members and cronies got rich while controlling the oil distribution business. Fast forward. Last year Maduro cut oil deliveries to Ortega even as the Nicaraguan economy turned sharply down. Ortega’s food and housing subsidies vanished. Artificially low prices at the pump rose. Unrest followed. Initially small anti-Ortega demonstrations were met with force. Now the country is one huge street fight. While Ortega’s goons try to quash the rebellion, criminal gangs roam the streets. Increasing poverty rates are exacerbating the violence. It’s an endless loop. Cuba was another client of Chavez’s oil subsidies. Now President Miguel Diaz-Canel admits his country experienced anemic economic growth in the first half of 2018. He also just announced a new constitution that slightly strays from Soviet-style economic orthodoxy, but leaves one-party rule intact. Diaz-Canel’s last name is different, but Castroism — the ideological blueprint for Chavism — remains the law of the land. And Cuba’s economic future is bleak. read more Whiskey PoliticsEp. 139 – Kevin D. Williamson, Roving Correspondent for The National Review, joins Dave to discuss how and why he was fired from The Atlantic after a few days, the Left’s attack on Free Speech, which, if any, of President Trump’s policies Kevin approves, the future of the Republican Party and Conservatism, and much more.
Follow Kevin at http://www.nationalreview.com/author/kevin-d-williamson/ Please subscribe to Whiskey Politics on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/c/WhiskeyPolitics Find us on: The Ricochet Network http://ricochet.com/series/whiskey-politics/ WhiskeyPolitics.net http://whiskeypolitics.net/ Facebook http://www.facebook.com/whiskeypoliticsblog Dave on Twitter http://twitter.com/DavidSussman |
Click HERE to activate a free subscription of Hillsdale's Imprimis magazine for yourself or a friend.
|
