(Caracas) By all accounts, Venezuela should be a rich country, not only is it blessed with a fertile land, it also has abundant stocks of oil in which to enrich the lives of it 28 million people. But there's a problem, and that problem is socialism. From 1999 until last year, the country was run by Hugo Chavez, and instead of salting away his country's wealth for a rainy day, he spent, spent and spent some more on trying to promote socialist causes around the world ($9.4 billion last year to Cuba alone). He spent billions more on purchasing the best Russian weapons that his oil money can buy ($7.2 billion in debt for the purchase of weapons from Russia). Yet for all that oil wealth, Hugo forgot to do anything about the infrastructure of the country, which is why in a country rich in oil, the people suffer power outrages, the same country which, while blessed with ample reserves of water, suffers from water shortages. In fact, the lot of the people under socialism isn't anything to write home about, there are virtually shortages of everything (including toilet paper). Where Venezuela could feed itself, Chavez in his infinite wisdom decided to undercut the local producers by helping his friends in Argentina by importing huge amounts of food from there, and at a stroke destroyed Venezuela's farming industry. (Ironically, so bad is the state at organising things, it transpired that over 30,000 tonnes of imported food was found rotting in one port alone). Then there's the death toll year in year out, it has risen exponentially in 2012, the total number of people murdered came in at just under 22,000. The only reason I can't quote the figures for 2103 is because the government has stopped publishing data.
Well, Hugo died last year and Nicolás Maduro took his place. And guess what, he's continued down the very same path Hugo did, and while he may have had the charisma to woo the public, this former bus driver doesn't and the people have made sure he knows it, by protesting on the streets. Well, in order to get them on his side he's blamed the media, blamed people who own shops, given away week long paid holidays, and guess what, the people didn't and haven't bought into his paranoid delusions, so with that in mind he's fallen onto the old staple... blame America.
Yup, according to the driver of the number 22 bus, the reason why people are rioting on the streets of Venezuela, is simply because the US wants all the oil the country has and is fermenting trouble so that she it get it all. The thing is, at this moment in time, the US is energy rich and is actually cutting back on its hydrocarbon use. Funny that?
Well, Hugo died last year and Nicolás Maduro took his place. And guess what, he's continued down the very same path Hugo did, and while he may have had the charisma to woo the public, this former bus driver doesn't and the people have made sure he knows it, by protesting on the streets. Well, in order to get them on his side he's blamed the media, blamed people who own shops, given away week long paid holidays, and guess what, the people didn't and haven't bought into his paranoid delusions, so with that in mind he's fallen onto the old staple... blame America.
Yup, according to the driver of the number 22 bus, the reason why people are rioting on the streets of Venezuela, is simply because the US wants all the oil the country has and is fermenting trouble so that she it get it all. The thing is, at this moment in time, the US is energy rich and is actually cutting back on its hydrocarbon use. Funny that?
