Mainstream reporters, editors, producers and talking heads love socialism

Are journalists abject socialists or just too stupid to see the obvious?

It's actually not a trick question.  For example:

When the New York Times wrote about Venezuela's economic collapse a year ago the "journalist" described how the country was suffering "painful shortages … even of basic foods," and how "electricity and water are being rationed, and huge areas of the country have spent months with little of either."

So what do you think the Times reporter claimed was the reason for Venezuela's economic collapse?

The growing economic crisis (was) fueled by low prices for oil, the country's main export; a drought that has crippled Venezuela's ability to generate hydroelectric power; and a long decline in manufacturing and agricultural production.

The Times story contained not a word about the fact that Hugo Chavez nationalized the country's oil industry, its agricultural operations, transportation, power generation, telecommunications, steel production and banks.  It failed to note that after taking over the oil industry and appointing ignorant, untrained political hacks to management positions, the country's oil production plummeted.

And of course the story didn't say that the current president of the country--Chavez' former vice-prez and chosen successor, Nicolás Maduro--has taken these policies to even crazier levels, like ordering mandatory maximum prices for most goods, forcing businesses to sell goods for less than their cost--bankrupting them.

So either the "journalists" at the Times know absolutely nothing about economics, or they're intentionally misleading Americans by covering up the truth about the disaster that is socialism.

Members of the mainstream media--reporters, editors, producers and talking-head newsreaders--are simply unwilling to admit that socialism doesn't work.  That unwillingness to see reality drives them to look for anything else to blame when a socialist economy invariably fails.


The AP lovingly described Chavez as

...a political outsider promising to upset the old order and funnel some of the country's enormous oil wealth to the poor.  Poverty rates fell sharply during his administration, and many people continue to see him as a beloved Robin Hood figure who gave them houses, free health care, better education and a place at the table in government."

That list of "freebies" reads like the Democratic Party platform.

Now it's certainly true that world oil prices took a big fall starting a couple of years ago--ironically as a result of the huge increase in U.S. oil production due to amazing new technology developed by oil companies--and that this certainly cut into Venezuela's income.  It's also true that reduced rainfall has reduced the amount of hydroelectric power available.  But neither of those factors comes close to accounting for the utter, ghastly disaster caused by socialist policies.

Yet Democrats want to nationalize all health care and "give" "free" college to all.  Socialism...wheee!

Hat tip: Investor's Business Daily