I came across an interesting article from Canadian Dimension titled “Five Reasons Why The Left Won In Venezuela.” The writer is from “Code Pink” which is a left wing organization of activists for peace and social justice as well as green jobs. Co-founder, Medea Benjamin, was a supporter of the late Hugo Chavez and it was “Code Pink” activists that occupied the Venezuela Embassy in 2019 which earned them a photo opp with Nicolas Maduro as well as a replica of Simon Bolivar’s sword. Earlier this year they lobbied for the release of Alex Saab. Needless to say, I don’t have much in common with these people but let’s take a look at their five points.

1/Good governance in health,housing,and food.

   Any loyal reader of Tales From Teodoro knows that Chavismo has completely destroyed Venezuela’s healthcare system. You can go to my first week’s blog posts for details but, as my wife said,” In Venezuela people go to the hospital to die.” Their Covid-19 vaccination response has been horrible with only about 36% vaccinated. The regime says 70% so maybe the “Code Pink” folks are buying the Chavista propaganda. Do they think an 85% medicine shortage is a sign of good health policy? Have they seen the babies in cardboard boxes due to lack of incubators? As far as housing goes the government has done some good things for the people. Where they fell short was their promise to actually give the houses to the people as Chavez promised. The inhabitants do not receive title. The government holds that to extort behavior that supports the Chavistas. And the food situation is the worst of all. Again, we have covered this extensively in our “Venezuela : Down The Rabbit Hole” segments. The people are starving and dying, being forced to dig through garbage for food. The government’s CLAP food program is just another corrupt extortion mechanism by the Chavistas to control the people and enrich themselves. To believe anything else you have to buy into the Chavista propaganda and deny the facts. Exposing the truth about people digging through garbage for food got Univision’s Jorge Rodriguez and his crew deported.

2/The Economic Situation Is Improving

   They cite the only economic report out there that predicts economic growth for 2021. Everyone else is saying the economy will contract again,as it has every year since Maduro took power.They also reference oil production hitting an 18 month high in October.Yes, that’s true. What they don’t say is that the average monthly oil production figure for 2021 is around 500,000 bpd (barrels per day) down from over 3 million bpd when the Chavistas took power and they have let the oil production infrastructure collapse to the point that it will take over a decade to fix and will require an investment in the neighborhood of $200 billion and the government is broke. Oh, and no outside investors want to do business with the Maduro regime.  How’s that for a rosy economic outlook when you make almost all of your legal revenue from oil production?

3/ The Left Is United (Mostly)

   Again, I have to say yes, but to what end? The Chavistas are only concerned with holding on to power and if that power comes at the expense of the Venezuelan people so be it. If they were concerned with the plight of the people why are there currently almost 6 million Venezuelan migrants and refugees fleeing Chavismo with numbers increasing every day?

4/ The Opposition Is Divided

   No doubt about it! Until the opposition can unite to throw off the yoke of Chavismo the Venezuelan people will continue to suffer and die.

5/ The Opposition Is Deeply Unpopular

   I guess it depends on how you look at it. There are so many opposition parties now that no one in particular has a large national following. We do know,however, that the Maduro regime’s popularity currently stands at a whopping 15%. In short, they hate the Chavistas and distrust the opposition.And who can blame them?

 We here at TFT don’t buy into any of the Chavista propaganda. Our mission here is the truth. The truth is that Chavismo, which could have done some real good for the people of Venezuela, has done nothing but make them suffer as they looted every dollar and every resource they could get their hands on. As Lord Acton put it, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Think about that any time you want to give more power to any centralized entity, be it government or otherwise.

 As for “Code Pink”, it looks like each of their five points both requires, and falls short when exposed to closer scrutiny. It’s always the same with people and organizations like this. Ideology trumps reality and usually to the detriment of those the claim they want to help.Critical Race Theory proponents claim,as does “Code Pink”, that they’re for social justice. My problem with that line of thinking is that it requires that I abandon the dream of Martin Luther King,remember him? The guy that dreamed his children would live in a world where one was judged on the content of their character, not the color of their skin. CRT would have you believe that if you don’t consider the color of one’s skin you’re a racist. So, am I to trade the teachings of a civil rights icon that gave his life for what he believed for the thoughts of an affiliate, associate professor at the University of Washington?

 It’s the same problem I have with Black Lives Matter. I believe in the statement but not the organization and these days if you say you don’t support BLM you’re labelled a racist. They are self proclaimed Marxists (Maduro is a Marxist). Aside from the fact that Marxism is responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people I differ from Marx fundamentally. I’m not buying any writings by a guy that talks about exploitation when he exploited his partner in order to take the time to write those very things. I prefer to remain skeptical and objective even though one of the founders of BLM says skepticism an objectivity are white supremacist values. Organizations like “Code Pink” who support Marxist regimes and Black Lives Matter who support Marxist regimes have no credibility with me.

 OK, I’ll get down off my soap box and leave you with something I’ve said before. It’s one of my all time favorite quotes about truth. It comes from “The International”. “There are four things, what people want to hear,what they’re willing to believe, then there’s everything else, and then there’s the truth.”

 More tomorrow….