Islamist World Unites Behind Venezuelan Dictator Maduro

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Breitbart

The world’s most high-profile Islamist nations and terrorist organizations – from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the Hamas and Hezbollah groups – set aside Sunni and Shiite differences this week to unite behind Nicolás Maduro, ejected from the presidency through the invocation of a Venezuelan constitutional mandate to remove dictators.

That Muslim leaders who have previously called each other “terrorists” – Erdogan and Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, for example – could agree to back a Latin American despot at a moment where most of the free world has lent its support for legitimate President Juan Guaidó is a testament to decades of diplomatic work by Maduro and dictator Hugo Chávez before him to integrate the Venezuelan socialist dictatorship into the fabric of the Middle East’s anti-American regional leadership.

Guaidó took an oath of office Wednesday amid protests that he estimates attracted over 7 million Venezuelans nationwide, calling for an end to the socialist regime. Guaidó was previously president of the federal legislature, the National Assembly. Maduro has refused to step down and used the military to crack down on peaceful dissidents, killing at least 18 at press time.

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Their favorite thug.

[Valin]

5 Things You Need To Know About What's Going On In Venezuela

Kassy Dillon

Jan. 25 2019

Venezuela is a country driven to poverty by a socialist regime that has increasingly embraced dictatorial polices. The President/dictator of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, has helped drive the nation into a humanitarian and economic crisis that now features an inflation rate of over 1 million percent and citizens starving to the point of resorting to eating dogs, cats, and zoo animals.

In May, Maduro was elected to his second six-year term — an election that many say was illegitimate due to electoral fraud and boycotts by Maduro’s opposition, as TIME reports. Now, the leader of Venezuela's National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, 35, has claimed he is the rightful leader of Venezuela.

Guaidó is a one-term lawmaker in an opposition party that controls the legislature, which is recognized by most countries despite Maduro stripping away the powers of the legislature in 2017. Guaidó has condemned Maduro’s election as rigged and vowed to be the head of state until new and fair elections can be held, citing a constitutional amendment that gives the authority to the head of the legislature to take control when there is a "vacuum of power."

The Venezuelan game of thrones has sparked protests nationwide and has captured the world's attention. Here are five things you need to know:

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[Valin]

Yes, Venezuela Is a Socialist Catastrophe

Bret Stephens

January 25, 2019

Conspicuous by its relative absence in much of the mainstream news coverage of Venezuela’s political crisis is the word “socialism.” Yes, every sensible observer agrees that Latin America’s once-richest country, sitting atop the world’s largest proven oil reserves, is an economic basket case, a humanitarian disaster, and a dictatorship whose demise cannot come soon enough.

But … socialist? Perish the thought.

Or so goes a line of argument that insists socialism’s good name shouldn’t be tarred by the results of experience. On Venezuela, what you’re likelier to read is that the crisis is the product of corruption, cronyism, populism, authoritarianism, resource-dependency, U.S. sanctions and trickery, even the residues of capitalism itself. Just don’t mention the S-word because, you know, it’s working really well in Denmark.

Curiously, that’s not how the Venezuelan regime’s admirers used to speak of “21st century socialism,” as it was dubbed by Hugo Chávez. The late Venezuelan president, said Britain’s Jeremy Corbyn, “showed us there is a different and a better way of doing things. It’s called socialism, it’s called social justice, and it’s something that Venezuela has made a big step toward.” Noam Chomsky was similarly enthusiastic when he praised Chávez in 2009. “What’s so exciting about at last visiting Venezuela,” the linguist said, is that “I can see how a better world is being created and can speak to the person who’s inspired it.”

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[Valin]

In Venezuela, socialism has succeeded the way it always does

Washington Examiner

 January 26, 2019

A writer for the leftist Nation magazine opined in 2013, "Yes, the Venezuelan president could be a strongman," upon the Venezuelan dictator's death. "But he leaves behind what might be called the most democratic country in the Western Hemisphere."

Such are the delusions of socialism. Chavez, having been legitimately elected in 1998, quickly set out to destroy Venezuela's democratic institutions. Taking advantage of a weak and too-easily-altered national constitution, he neutered the elected legislature and destroyed the independence of its judiciary. He thus augmented his own power at home. Abroad, he began the work of subverting democratic governments of other countries in his neighborhood and subsidizing Cuba's repressive regime with cheap oil.

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Never forget this when you hear American politicians today refer to themselves as socialists, even when they modify that by calling themselves "democratic socialists." Eventually, socialism inevitably produces coercion and ends freedom. These politicians are owning up to supporting a system that worked its miracle of destruction in Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, and in so many other nations before.