Venezuela and Good Intentions
Janis Hernandez
HAVANA TIMES — An old proverb says that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. This maxim can be applied to those leftwing parties that come to power claiming to represent the people’s interests and, as time passes, become increasingly totalitarian.
Venezuela is a good example of this trend. To those who do not agree with me, I can only say that time will prove me right. Since taking office, President Maduro has set in motion a series of maneuvers that can only lead to absolutism in time.
The enabling laws (special powers) that furnish the leader with so many prerogatives could be a double-edged sword for any truly democratic society.
Maduro claims to speak on behalf of the people, so I find it rather curious that he always does so in the first person. “I’ve decided, I’ve established, I’ve said,” and similar phrases are common in the president’s speeches.
Nowhere in the boring diatribes of the enthusiastic president do we find a “we” or “our government.”
Some of my colleagues had already referred to Maduro’s ill-tempered and threatening tone. Incidentally, that is one of the things he criticizes the opposition for most frequently. It doesn’t seem to bother him when he does it.
In his alleged pleas for peace, we find a marked tendency to define the opposing camps, underscore divisions and highlight differences.
In the name of the “socialism of the 21st century”, a program he inherited from his predecessor Hugo Chavez, he has set in motion a series of projects comprising the so-called “Plan for the Homeland.” The social programs, new economic adjustments and other measures contained in this plan are, in and of themselves, moved by very good intentions.
But we should be careful, as this is a movie many of us have seen before.
In theory, everything always works very well, but, in the long term, all of these “gifts” give rise to many evils: inflation, social parasitism, and the worst thing of all – the subjective debt people come to incur with their generous governments, later collected in the form of their most elementary civil liberties.
This new type of socialism reminds me a lot of the old one. It’s more of the same with one or two changes here and there. And it is always presented behind the veil of “good intentions.”
Venezuela: Unarmed Protestors Beaten, Shot
http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/05/05/venezuela-unarmed-protestors-beaten-shot
Venezuelan security forces have used unlawful force in response to antigovernment demonstrations, severely beating unarmed protesters and shooting them at point blank range, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Security forces also subjected detainees to severe physical and psychological abuse, including in some cases torture, and justice officials failed to safeguard detainees’ due process rights.
“free and fair election”
…funny guy right here, sure lets say that
Maduro’s government is increasingly unpopular. Recent polls show that only a third of Venezuelans identify themselves as ‘chavistas’. Another slightly larger third directly oppose Maduro and the remaining third are in the middle. For the most basic consumer goods, inflation for the year is nearly 80%. Maduro’s monetary policy has increased black market currency sales. There is very, very little good news coming out of his leadership. On top of this, Maduro himself has gone from simply being Chavez hand-picked buffoon to developing his own ‘hard-to-like’ persona. His weekly unfounded conspiracy theories have only made him seem crazy and paranoid. The ‘Cubanization’ of Venezuela is moving at a rapid pace.
Janis, so much to say about Maduro’s vocabulary and ill-temperedness ? Curious. Your post comes just 8 days after Dr. Eliecer Otaiza’s bullet ridden body was found in Caracas and no a word about it from you. Are the fascists, killing Chavistas, burning clinics and schools and assaulting Cuban doctors doing so with good intentions as well ?
Something that you should be aware of and yet seem to be totally oblivious to is the fact that Maduro was ELECTED by the Venezuelan people in an internationally witnessed free and fair election just as Hugo Chavez was ELECTED for some ten years before him.
If the people of Venezuela are unhappy with Maduro …THEY CAN VOTE HIM OUT.
It’s what democracy is all about and you just have no concept of what democracy is and how it works.
Mind you, I am an anarchist .
I deeply believe that all governments long enough in power become self-preserving, corrupt and totalitarian .
While any government ( party) in power including Maduro’s seeks to preserve their power position, Maduro’s government is neither very corrupt nor totalitarian since elections in Venezuela remain free and fair.
Face it, you don’t like the left nor its programs and philosophies and since your side can’t defeat Maduro at the polls, they seek to defame and remove him by force
What you and your friends should also know,, but do not, is that the Monroe Doctrine is dead and Latin America and the Caribbean nations will not stand for further U.S.military interventions
nor CIA and State Department subversion of democratically elected governments.
You seem to have failed to have learned from history and are parroting the lines from the U.S. State Department: the mouthpiece for imperialism .