Sorry about the interruption….

 Chapter 2/ Setting the record straight…

 There is a lot of talk these days about sanctions. North Korea, Iran, Russia, China, Venezuela, Cuba…Before addressing the Venezuela sanctions I want to issue my disclaimer, the same one I always remind my family of. For the most part I’m not a fan of most politicians. I was not a “Trump guy”, nor an “Obama guy” and so on. As a lifetime fan of history  it seems most of “my guys” are dead. History is best served when you take the time to read what happened, in as much as it’s possible, and do your best to understand it, whether you like it or not, agree with it or not.

 That said, there’s been a lot of talk about the negative effect of US sanctions on the population of Venezuela. There is misinformation (I’m burned out on the term “fake news”) floating around that is being parroted by members of congress and at least one prominent economist. The claim is that US sanctions are responsible for the deaths of 40,000 Venezuelans.

 The first thing that strikes me is the number 40,000. If we’re talking about the number of Venezuelans that have died from starvation / malnutrition, lack of medicine / healthcare, suicide (yes, suicide), and other related issues in recent years I would have to say the number is way low. I’ve read the number is more like 300,000 and that’s not counting the 28,000 or 29,000 murders each year.

 The next thing about the statement is it’s simplicity. All sanctions are not created equal and in order to understand the impact of the sanctions you have to know what they are and how long they’ve been in effect, right?

 The sanctions were initiated by Barack Obama in 2015. I guess most of the progressive crowd either don’t know this or have chosen to overlook this fact. At that time the Venezuelan people were already dying from shortages of food and medicine. Food shortages were the most prevalent at the time and caused massive demonstrations in 2014 in which 40 people were killed, hundreds wounded, and thousands jailed as the government repressed dissent.

 More tomorrow….