The Game Plan

Why is it, I wonder, that the "journalists" in the main stream media never—and I mean never—question the current leaders of the Democratic party on the devolving situation in Venezuela. After all, the current hard-left leadership—Bernie Sanders, Liz Warren, Keith Ellison, Tom Perez, among many others—has and continues to advocate policies for the United States that are eerily similar to early policies that were originally proposed by Hugo Chavez, the socialist who led Venezuela along a path to economic and social destruction. Here's what Chavez' game plan was:

1. Demonize "the rich," telling everyone else that it's all their fault.
2. Tax "the rich" at rates that become confiscatory.
3. When the rich begin to leave, tax the next level of earners; rename them, "The Rich."
4. Claim that a redistribution of income will help the poor.
5. Provide giveaways to the poorest to buy their support, but do nothing that actually change their situation.
6. As money begins to run out, allow infrastructure to crumble.
7. As money continues to run out, raise taxes even more.
8. As money continues to run out, cut services for the poor as well as everyone else.
9. Regulate all industry, thereby crippling productivity.
10. When that doesn't work, suggest that the government can do a better job than the private sector.
11. As things go to hell, nationalize private industry.
12. As things get even worse, manipulate the currency and institute price controls.
13. As critics begin to question failing policies, weaponize the government against them.
14. As riots begin, brutalize your opponents and even kill them.

And it only get worse from there.

It would be interesting to hear Sanders or Warren try to explain how the socialist experiment in Venezuela went wrong, but the trained hamsters in the media never ask. In fact, they work very hard to avoid any mention of our South American neighbor, afraid that at least some of their readers/viewers might connect the dots on their own.

Juan Forero reports:

YARE, Venezuela— Jean Pierre Planchart, a year old, has the drawn face of an old man and a cry that is little more than a whimper. His ribs show through his skin. He weighs just 11 pounds.

His mother, Maria Planchart, tried to feed him what she could find combing through the trash—scraps of chicken or potato. She finally took him to a hospital in Caracas, where she prays a rice-milk concoction keeps her son alive.

“I watched him sleep and sleep, getting weaker, all the time losing weight,” said Ms. Planchart, 34 years old. “I never thought I’d see Venezuela like this.”

Her country was once Latin America’s richest, producing food for export. Venezuela now can’t grow enough to feed its own people in an economy hobbled by the nationalization of private farms, and price and currency controls.

As readers of this Blog know, I revisit the Venezuelan catastrophe regularly. Sadly, it keeps getting worse. That's a lesson that the current collection of bright lights (dim bulbs?) of the Democratic party can't seem to learn.

UPDATE (5/8/17):
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Even thought the main stream media has to report on the collapse of Venezuela, many of the trained hamsters assidulously avoid any mention of the reason why the collapse has occurred. Tom Bumer reports:

NBC News's 1,600-word report by Peter Cahill and Laura Saravia Saturday morning was supposed to be an explainer ("Venezuela Protests and Economic Crisis: What Is Going On?"). Unfortunately, it mostly reads like a dispatch from two people who haven't followed the country's news at all since the turn of the century who are desperately, and ineffectively, trying to play catch-up.

Despite their claim that their report "breaks down what led to the turmoil, what could come next, and why it matters to America," readers only see a recitation of Venezuela's recent woes, and barely get any legitimate clue as to their origin. Here are the pair's first three paragraphs, followed by a later one:

Despite having the world's largest oil reserves, Venezuela is suffering from a deep recession and hyper-inflation. Prices rose by 800 percent in 2016, with the International Monetary Fund predicting inflation could hit 2,200 percent by the end of 2017. Meanwhile, the economy shrunk by 18.6 last year, according to Reuters.

At the same time, food and medicine shortages are creating a humanitarian emergency. Shoppers, forced to wait in long lines to buy basic supplies, are often met by empty grocery shelves. Hospitals are suffering from acute shortfalls of everything from antibiotics, to basic sanitation equipment like medical gloves and soap.

The current protests were triggered by a Supreme Court decision to strip power from the National Assembly, the opposition-held Congress — a move widely thought to be aimed at concentrating power in the hands of Maduro's increasingly unpopular government.

... Gustavo Arnavat, senior advisor at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, told NBC News that these conditions "have produced a political and constitutional crisis that are precipitating the complete collapse of the state."

Despite having the world's largest oil reserves, Venezuela is suffering from a deep recession and hyper-inflation. Prices rose by 800 percent in 2016, with the International Monetary Fund predicting inflation could hit 2,200 percent by the end of 2017. Meanwhile, the economy shrunk by 18.6 last year, according to Reuters.

At the same time, food and medicine shortages are creating a humanitarian emergency. Shoppers, forced to wait in long lines to buy basic supplies, are often met by empty grocery shelves. Hospitals are suffering from acute shortfalls of everything from antibiotics, to basic sanitation equipment like medical gloves and soap.

The current protests were triggered by a Supreme Court decision to strip power from the National Assembly, the opposition-held Congress — a move widely thought to be aimed at concentrating power in the hands of Maduro's increasingly unpopular government.

... Gustavo Arnavat, senior advisor at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, told NBC News that these conditions "have produced a political and constitutional crisis that are precipitating the complete collapse of the state."

As I explained in my post, "The Meta-characteristics of Fake News," fake news is more than posting stories that are false. Those are relatively easy to debunk. Much more insidious is the fake news that omits key facts that would help members of the public better understand context. Invariably, the trained hamsters do this when key facts might lead the news consumer to come to a conclusion that runs counter to their left-wing narrative. In the case of Venezuela, that means spiking any reference to the underlying cause—a corrupt socialist ideology—that has destroyed a once vibrant country.