We’ll go Down The Rabbit Hole in just a bit but first…Responsible Statecraft had the headline “Making fair elections a condition for easing sanctions is wrong”. Venezuela President (dictator) Nicolas Maduro broke a deal with Washington, but economic coercion is not going to make things better.

 The article says sanctions hurt the Venezuelan people and exacerbate the humanitarian crisis and proposes dialog and diplomatic means. Articles like this, coming on the heels of the US re-imposing sanctions on Venezuela’s oil and gas sector, are as predictable as the sun rising in the east so I’ll be brief…

 Sanctions are the only viable option in dealing with Nicolas Maduro, short of a military invasion. Dialog and diplomacy have been tried again and again, and failed again and again. Sanctions against individuals were tried for years and accomplished nothing.

 Sanctions against Venezuela’s oil and gas sector may restrict revenue to the Maduro regime but he would still have funds to address the humanitarian crisis, if it was a priority, since the Chavistas make more money through their illegal trafficking networks than from oil sales.

 Nicolas Maduro and the Chavistas are bad guys that killed 40 peaceful protesters in 2014, killed 140 more in 2017 protests, have averaged 1,400 extrajudicial killings per year by government security forces since Maduro took power in 2013, are under investigation by the ICC (International Criminal Court) for Human Rights violations and possible crimes against humanity, and Maduro and his compatriots are solely responsible for the suffering of the Venezuelan people.

 They are evil, and as Edmund Burke said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”.

 Then we have Rio Times reporting that Venezuela President (dictator) Nicolas Maduro ordered the closing of it’s embassy and consulates in Ecuador, in a show of support for Mexico, who has cut diplomatic ties with Ecuador, following a raid on the Mexican Embassy in Ecuador by Ecuadorian authorities to arrest a former VP of Ecuador, who had sought asylum. You won’t hear this often from me but I tend to agree with Nico on this one.

 Now, lets head Down The Rabbit Hole…

 Chapter 7/ continued…

 …Anyway, Chavez expropriated 3 and 1/2 million hectares (a hectare is 2 and 1/2 acres) of farmland. He divided it into plots, with some livestock for each, and gave it (without title) to poor families from the barrios (mostly the slums of Caracas). Aside from the fact that my ancestral family were farmers, I think most people know that farming is not an easy way to make a living. Families with generations of accumulated knowledge, or corporate farms run by people with agricultural degrees, have a rough go of it. What would be the chances of success if you took a family from the South Bronx in New York and dropped them in Nebraska saying “OK, here’s your farm… Good luck!”

 You can imagine what happened. 35,000 hectares out of the 3 and 1/2 million expropriated actually produced. Not exactly a testament to societal experimentation. Try getting a drug approved with a 1% success rate in clinical trials. I do have to tip my hat to the 1% that succeeded though…Good on ya’! You defied the odds!

 Another victim to Chavismo scapegoating was the warehousing/distribution system. They took a big hit during the “Guarimba”  in 2014 and never recovered. The warehousing/distribution companies came under fire during the “Guarimba”, protests spurred by the food shortages in 2014 caused by the ludicrous price controls. Maduro had to blame somebody for the empty supermarket shelves so anyone with a warehouse was an easy target. Inspectors, backed up by the National Guard, would show up at a warehouse, seize whatever food was stored there, jail someone from management, and have it delivered to the supermarkets. “Hoarding by those greedy speculators” would not be tolerated by “The Revolution”!!

This pretty much killed the idea of an orderly flow of goods to the supermarkets. Trucks would go from a processing facility directly to the supermarkets and unload whatever product they had to the waiting crowds. It was chaotic. Some locations got big deliveries while others got nothing, depending on their government connections. News of pending deliveries was leaked via social media and finding out what was being delivered, where it was being delivered, then going and waiting in line for it became a full-time job.

 When the Chavistas weren’t busy destroying farming, putting all the supporting companies, you know, everything from machinery parts for both the farmers and food processors, to seed and fertilizer suppliers etc. out of business, and dismantling the warehousing/distribution network, they devoted their efforts to fraudulent schemes purported to feed the people.

 One such scheme was a 2010 project launched by Hugo Chavez with China’s CAMC Engineering Company. It was promoted as a comprehensive project including the largest rice-processing plant in Latin America and rice paddies twice the size of Manhattan. $100,000,000 was allocated and after nine years their project remained half-built…but the money wasn’t half-spent. At one of the buildings for the Hugo Chavez Plant they had a ribbon-cutting ceremony in 2019, with Maduro’s Agricultural Minister doing the honors. The visuals on Venezuela state-run media were impressive, silos and everything! Looks can be deceiving. It turns out that inside the plant workers were packing IMPORTED RICE, by hand, not utilizing the proposed machinery that was said to be capable of producing 18 tons per hour.

 More tomorrow….