3 killed in Venezuelan protests

Well, looks like Venezuelans have just about had enough of their socialist government's bullshit, repression and incompetence.  The following is from...ah, I'll tell you at the bottom.

Is This the End of Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela?

In the midst of runaway violence, inflation, and shortages of basic goods, Venezuela’s youth have taken to the streets—to take on its Orwellian government.

The text from my friend Luis surprised me. He got a masters degree from an elite Manhattan university and had returned to Venezuela full of hope. He was hired by a local NGO working on poverty abatement issues. But now, he’s fed up.

“Nothing works. There are lines to buy everything. Prices have gone through the roof. You can’t go out at night for fear of getting shot. If you want to get married, finding a place to live is impossible. The country has become unlivable.”

Luis’s story is a depressingly common one on the streets of Venezuela’s major urban centers. People are tired of enduring one of the world’s highest inflation rates, scarcities of basic staples like toilet paper, and the near certainty that things are going to get worse before they get better. A few days ago the Associated Press reported on Venezuelans camping on the sidewalk to get information about emigrating to Ireland.

This week the streets of Caracas and other large Venezuelan cities saw large protests that ended with three people shot dead and dozens wounded.  Eyewitnesses blame the violence on government-sponsored armed motorcycle gangs, similar to the ones used to suppress pro-democracy protests in Iran in 2009.

The protestors are mostly middle-class high-school and college students who reject the path Venezuela is taking.

What path might that be, cupcake?

Their objectives are hazy, ranging from an end to rampant crime to the resignation of the nation’s president, Nicolás Maduro.

Mostly, they are desperate. They see a dark future ahead, one in which Venezuela’s slow slide into a Cuban-style autocracy accelerates and is finally realized in its entirety.  In a remarkable act of defiance they have continued to protest throughout the country even after Maduro supposedly "banned” all protests.

This “ban,” apparently decided on a whim and not really enforced, highlights the absurd contradictions of a government that appears to have lost both its propaganda skill and its compass.

On Friday Maduro launched a government program of "peace and tolerance” during which he denounced the protestors as “fascists.” While the launch was being broadcast by all TV and radio stations in the country, the National Guard was attacking peaceful demonstrators with tear gas.

The government claims protestors "want a coup," and that the government is merely defending democracy, while simultaneously forcing a Colombian news channel, NTN24, off the cable grid for broadcasting coverage of the protests.

Venezuelans are accustomed to their government using Orwellian language. Indeed, this is a government that claims the scarcity and inflation caused by its own disastrous economic policies is somehow the consequence of an economic war engineered by the opposition. Its president claims his predecessor died of cancer because his enemies "inoculated” him with the disease.

Maduro’s predecessor, the late Hugo Chávez, once claimed capitalism had killed life on Mars, but insane statements clearly did not die with him. It’s clear that the governing elites in Caracas have a shaky grip on reality—and the problem is institutional. Venezuela’s political life has become a bad reality TV show, and the country’s youth simply wants it to end.

The article above is from The Daily Beast--a hard-Left blog.  At first I was amazed that a left-supporting blog would post a single word acknowledging trouble in a fellow-socialist country.  Could a few American leftists, I wondered, finally be willing to criticize socialism?

I know--just not possible.  The word "socialism" never appears in the article, nor does the author describe Maduro's government as "socialist."  Even after tiptoeing up to the line by noting that young Venezuelans "reject the path Venezuela is taking," the author can't bear to violate one of the cardinal rules of the left by actually mentioning what path that is.

When a socialist regime explodes, Leftists and media talking heads dare not name the system lest they be removed from the A-list for cocktail parties in D.C., NY and Hollywood.