Venezuela is done....

[American Patriot]

The Game Changed in Venezuela Last Night – and the International Media Is Asleep At the Switch

By Francisco Toro -
February 20, 2014
1047
81296

San Cristobal ayer

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FEBRUARY 20TH, 2014
Dear International Editor:
Listen and understand. The game changed in Venezuela last night. What had been a slow-motion unravelling that had stretched out over many years went kinetic all of a sudden.
What we have this morning is no longer the Venezuela story you thought you understood.


Throughout last night, panicked people told their stories of state-sponsored paramilitaries onmotorcycles roaming middle class neighborhoods, shooting at people and storming into apartment buildings, shooting at anyone who seemed like he might be protesting.
People continue to be arrested merely for protesting, and a long established local Human Rights NGO makes an urgent plea for an investigation into widespread reports of torture of detainees. There are now dozens of serious human right abuses: National Guardsmen shooting tear gas canisters directly into residential buildings. We have videos of soldiers shooting civilians on the street.
And that’s just what came out in real time, over Twitter and YouTube, before any real investigation is carried out. Online media is next, a city of 645,000 inhabitants has been taken off the internet amid mounting repression, and this blog itself has been the object of a Facebook “block” campaign.
What we saw were not “street clashes”, what we saw is a state-hatched offensive to suppress and terrorize its opponents.
Here at Caracas Chronicles we’re doing what it can to document the crisis, but there’s only so much one tiny, zero-budget blog can do.
After the major crackdown on the streets of large (and small) Venezuelan cities last night, I expected some kind of response in the major international news outlets this morning. I understand that with an even bigger and more photogenic freakout ongoing in an even more strategically important country, we weren’t going to be front-page-above-the-fold, but I’m staggered this morning to wake up, scan the press and find…
Nothing.
As of 11 a.m. this morning, the New York Times World Section has…nothing.

[Malsua]

The difference between there and here is that here, people would be shooting back.

The government knows that ultimately it will need to pacify the populace and it's vastly easier when they don't shoot back.

[American Patriot]

Well, I posted this mostly because it's not in the news anywhere I could find.


And yes, we will shoot back and they know it. This is precisely the reason they want our guns. The next stage is to disarm us, then take the government all the way over the top.

[vector7]

A lesson for all those useful idiots voting for Bernie Sanders....

It costs $150 to buy a dozen eggs in Venezuela right now

May 31, 2016

The International Monetary Fund has predicted that inflation in Venezuela will hit 720% this year. That might be an optimistic assessment, according to some local economic analysts, who expect the rate to reach as high as 1,200%.

A sharp drop in global prices for oil -- on which Venezuela depends for most of its foreign currency -- is a big part of the problem. Critics also accuse the government of irresponsible spending on social welfare programs and oil subsidies to Cuba and other countries.

To understand what that kind of inflation means, we spoke to Maria Linares, a 42-year-old single mother who works as an accounting assistant at a government ministry and lives in an impoverished neighborhood of the capital, Caracas.

Her monthly pay, including a food allowance, is 27,000 bolivars.



That’s $2,700 a month at the official exchange rate of 10 bolivars to the dollar. But Venezuelans have so little faith in their currency -- or the government's ability to fix the country's deepening economic crisis -- that a dollar can fetch upward of 1,000 bolivars on the black market. At that rate, Linares earns just $27 a month.

Either way, it’s not enough.

In December, she was spending about half her salary on groceries. It now takes almost everything she earns to feed her two children, who subsist on manioc (also known as cassava or yuca), eggs and cornmeal patties called arepas, served with butter and plantains.

“The last time we had chicken was in December,” she said.

The best deals are generally at government-run stores, such as Mercal and Bicentenario, where the prices are regulated.

To shop there, however, Linares said, she has to line up overnight. Even then, she might come home empty-handed if everything sells out before she gets to the front of the line -- or if she is robbed leaving the store.

“The last time I bought food in a Mercal was three months ago,” she said. “They sold me one kilo [2.2 pounds] of rice, a kilo of pasta, a kilo of sugar and a liter of cooking oil for 1,540 bolivars. But to buy the basket of regulated products, I had to buy a watermelon for 400 bolivars. I didn’t want the watermelon and didn’t have the extra money to pay for it.”

These days, she buys most of her food from illegal street vendors known as bachaqueros.

Everything is more expensive, she said, and she might have to try five or six places to find what she needs. How much more expensive?

At the Mercal, a dozen eggs cost 450 bolivars in December.

The official price is now 1,020 bolivars. But Linares said she never finds eggs at the Mercal.

So she buys them from street vendors for around 1,500 bolivars -- a staggering $150 at the official exchange rate, or about $1.50 at the black market rate.
Manioc

In December, Linares could buy manioc for about 50 bolivars per pound at the government-run stores.

The official price is now about 300 bolivars per pound.

In December, Linares could buy powdered milk for her 10-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son for about 90 bolivars per pound at the government-run stores.

The official price increased to 245 bolivars in February.

Linares used to be able to buy corn flour to make arepas for just 9.5 bolivars per pound.

Last week, the official price increased to 95 bolivars per pound.

It's hard to find the product outside the government-run stores, and the price is much higher on the black market.

The family was never wealthy, Linares said, but such prices are making her and her kids feel poorer than ever.

“Now we are feeling hunger,” she said. “I don’t know what I’ll do if prices keep going up.”

http://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-...htmlstory.html

[Ryan Ruck]

A lesson for all those useful idiots voting for Bernie Sanders....

They won't...

"It's never been done right, that's why it's never worked. We're smart enough to make it work this time! That can't happen here!"

[American Patriot]

I told ya, they're done. Stick a fork in 'em.

When does WWIII start?

[vector7]

A Socialist Les Miserables in Venezuela

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Posted by Daniel Greenfield

A mob of starving people advanced on the presidential palace chanting, “We want food”. They were met by soldiers and police dispatched by the tyrant from his lavish palace decorated opulently with a golden sun, giant rock crystal mirrors, sparkling chandeliers and towering oil portraits.


The scene wasn’t 19th century France, but 21st century Venezuela.

And if you are wondering why you haven’t seen it on the news, it’s because Venezuela is a Socialist disaster area that was once being used as a model by the left. Now it’s a place where the vast majority of people can’t afford basic food staples and a third are down to two or fewer meals a day.

Obama laughed and joked with deceased monster Hugo Chavez, who handed him a copy of the anti-American tract, “Open Veins of Latin America” that had even been disavowed by its own author. Obama called the book a “nice gesture”, but Eduardo Galeano, its author, had told an audience that the left “commits grave errors” when in power.

Venezuela, once a wealthy oil state, where the doctors offering “universal health care” have no medicine and starving people loot government stores looking for food, is yet another example. 50 people are dead in the latest food riots. Their graves are yet another “grave error” of the left.

Obama has not appeared too concerned at the meltdown in Venezuela. Unlike Syria, there are no threats of intervention to remove Maduro, Chavez’s successor, and the rest of the leftist regime illegally clinging to power while slaughtering Venezuelans, smuggling drugs and aiding terrorists.

When Hugo Chavez was killed by the wonders of Cuban medicine, a remedy that American leftists recommend to others while they obtain the best private health care for their own ailments, Obama offered a vague statement of support calling Chavez’s passing, “challenging”.

It was certainly that.

Chavez had been none too tightly wound; claiming that capitalism had destroyed life on Mars, that Jews run the world and that his cancer had been caused by America, but his successor, Nicolas Maduro is insane. Maduro claimed that his deceased predecessor appeared to him in the form of a “little bird” and on a subway wall. He showed off the photo of the wall on state television while crying.

“Chavez is everywhere, we are Chavez, you are Chavez," he insisted.

Hugo Chavez is indeed everywhere. His portraits cover Venezuela. They’re a lot easier to find than food. And these days Venezuelans are far more interested in finding something to put in their mouths.

The left-wing sociologist running the Venezuelan economy doesn’t believe in inflation. Last year he wrote a pamphlet in which he insisted that “Inflation does not exist in real life.”

Inflation certainly exists in Venezuela which has seen 500% inflation. The Socialist regime responded with price controls. When stores and farmers wouldn’t sell at set prices, soldiers were sent in to take them over. Crowds initially cheered all the subsidized products. But they wouldn’t be cheering for long.

After the fun of electronics stores forced to discount televisions at gunpoint, there were no more televisions. And no more cars. Then no more toilet paper, milk and other basic necessities.

The Socialist government tried to solve its money problem by printing more money. But it wasn’t able to pay for the money it wanted to print because of the inflation which officially did not exist.

Venezuela needs 10 billion bank notes in its new inflationary economy, more than America, and it can’t pay for them. Or pay for anything else. It can’t afford to import food and it refuses to pay fair prices at home. Meanwhile eggs, at the official exchange rate, run to $150, McDonald’s fries for $126 and a pound of coffee for $85. Socialists may not believe in inflation, but inflation believes in them.

No wonder the people are starving.

Teachers sell passing grades to students in exchange for milk and flour. Lines at government stores are endless and an entire economy has been built on buying and trades spots on food lines. Fingerprint scanners are used to enforce milk rations. And a heavy military police and military presence is required to stop mobs of starving people from grabbing the food as soon as it arrives.

The military elite receive special food privileges. In a country where bread and butter have become distant memories for many, the guns used to oppress the Venezuelan people are paid for with butter. And the people are fighting back. The government calls its crackdown on starving people “Operation People’s Liberation”. The people however want to be liberated from their socialist liberators.

When the Socialist regime responded to electoral defeats by rigging the Supreme Court and arresting the free market opposition, the street battles intensified. The “Liberators”, who have the luxury of eating butter with their bread, are fighting hungry men and women in the streets of cities. And sometimes it’s the socialist “liberators” who are forced to retreat from the true people’s liberators.

While the socialists route food through the United Socialist Party of Venezuela’s CLAP committees to their own supporters, ordinary Venezuelans are hunting pigeons, and even dogs and cats in the capital.

Before the last election, Chavez said, “If I was from the United States, I'd vote for Obama.” And the two leaders do have some political and economic views in common. The fundamental difference is that it took Venezuela a lot less time to run out of “other people’s money” than America.

A few years ago, the left-wing site Salon was praising “Hugo Chavez’s economic miracle” and suggesting that we should follow his example of nationalizing companies. “Are there any constructive lessons to be learned from Chavez’s grand experiment with more aggressive redistribution?” its author wondered.

Someone ought to ask the starving mobs redistributing government food while dodging bullets.

Venezuelan socialists used the familiar language of claiming that subsidies and free services were human rights. “Health care can’t be privatized because it is a fundamental human right,” Chavez once claimed. That should sound familiar. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have said the same thing.

But Venezuela’s universal health care has no actual medicine. Hospitals have no running water or soap. Victims arrive with gunshots and aren’t treated until they settle their bill. Babies die routinely.

And it goes without saying that there is no food.



“I doubt that anywhere in the world, except in Cuba, there exists a better health system than this one,” Maduro insists.

Considering how bad actual Cuban medicine is, he’s probably right.

Socialism killed Venezuela. The country has no food, no money, no power, no health care and no hope. Venezuelans were promised a better life through government. This is what they received.

There are lessons for us here and they are obvious ones. And that is why the media has minimized its coverage of a horrific crisis. The people chanting that they want food are not rebelling against unfeeling corporations, but a government whose economic policies many on the left had viewed as a model.

The popularity of Bernie Sanders is based on many of the same empty promises of freebies for all that made Hugo Chavez such a hit. Venezuela is a model of how well that works out in real life. Socialism is increasingly popular in America. Meanwhile in Latin America, socialism kills babies and drives starving mobs to demand food outside the presidential palace under the guns of the regime’s soldiers.

It’s an old story, but it’s also a new story because when we forget history, then we are forced to repeat it.

https://sultanknish.blogspot.com/201...venezuela.html

[vector7]

Hungry Venezuelans Feed on Stray Dogs and Cats: “Pets May End Up in Cooking Pots”

Mac Slavo July 11th, 2016

How far would you go to eat?

The economic crisis in Venezuela, which has made food scarce, has become so sharp that many people are now being forced to turn on their pets in order survive.

The mounting cost of imported staple foods used to make dog and cat foods has proven to be prohibitive for many pet owners, who have trouble enough feeding themselves and their children and have been forced to release their pets to fend for themselves.

As a consequence, there has been a sharp increase in stray animals on roadsides and city areas, and along with them, people desperate enough to turn to these once-beloved companions as a source of food.

According to USA Today:

Household pets are the latest casualty in a country where food and other essential goods are becoming ever scarce, inflation is rampant, looting is escalating and electric blackouts occur regularly.
Pet food is one of the staples in short supply in a country that imports about 70% of its food. … The high prices mean many can give their animals only table scraps, vegetable peelings, rice shards or cooked bananas. Like their human owners, many pets are noticeably underweight.
[…]
“If people themselves don’t have enough to eat, what are they going to do with their pets?” [Angela Exposito, who heads Fundanimalia, a non-profit animal rescue organization] said. “People feel they have no choice but to abandon their animals.”
Many pets starve to death or are hit by passing vehicles. Others may end up in cooking pots. Ramon Muchacho, mayor of the Caracas suburb of Chacao, warned in May that hungry Venezuelans were hunting stray dogs and cats to eat.

For animal lovers and pet owners, the thought seems unconscionable.

However, the harsh truth is that a nation full of people who have already turned to looting, rioting, black market trade and now even pouring across the Colombian border to get food, will do anything to survive.

That isn’t just true just of Venezuela, or certain parts of the world, but of humanity in general. The potential for darkness is inside every man, woman and child.

If/when the thin veneer of civility is pulled down by a true and prolonged crisis, the unthinkable becomes the last resort for people who face true desperation. It can and will happen in America in the right set of wrong circumstances.

As SHTF reported back in May, Venezuela is headed towards the bottom, and something is going to have to give in order for its population to survive and someday return to balance:

Now, hunger and scarcity have apparently reached a tipping point that is driving people to poach stray animals and even pets for food.
According to the PanAm Post:
Ramón Muchacho, Mayor of Chacao in Caracas, said the streets of the capital of Venezuela are filled with people killing animals for food.
Through Twitter, Muchacho reported that in Venezuela, it is a “painful reality” that people “hunt cats, dogs and pigeons” to ease their hunger. People are also reportedly gathering vegetables from the ground and trash to eat as well.
The crisis in Venezuela is worsening everyday due in part to shortages reaching 70 percent […] six Venezuelan military officials were arrested for stealing goats to ease their hunger, as there was no food at the Fort Manaure military base.
As pure desperation sets in, crime also becomes inevitable.

But what about the rest of the world, where the economic forecast remains quite gloomy?

Even former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan warned that Venezuela was under martial law and that ‘America and Europe are next.’ And that means the people here could reach just as desperate a situation.

While it seems quite distant from current events, the reality is that brewing chaos could shift more quickly than any of us think into martial law and a deep economic collapse.

Are you prepared for food shortages, riots and masses who have been reduced to looting and poaching for food and supplies? Are you prepared to feed your pets, too, so they don’t fall victim to such dark times?

It would certainly be wise and prudent to get ready for the worst of it, while hoping that things turn around for the people of Venezuela who’ve been held hostage by dangerous socialist leader and the rest of the global economy stabilizes.

http://www.shtfplan.com/emergency-pr...-pots_07112016

[Ryan Ruck]

Jesus... How ghoulish and sad.

Just goes to reinforce how vitally important well round preps, to include near term food and long term food, are.

[American Patriot]

I guess nothing, not even dogs are sacred.

I was right when I started this thread. So, 1 out of a 1000 isn't bad I guess.

[Ryan Ruck]

Forward comrades!

Venezuela Calls For Mandatory Labor In Farm Sector

July 29, 2016

The government of Venezuela has issued a decree that "effectively amounts to forced labor" in an attempt to fix a spiraling food crisis, according to a new report from Amnesty International.

A Venezuelan ministry last week announced Resolution No. 9855, which calls for the establishment of a "transitory labor regime" in order to relaunch the agricultural and food sector. The decree says that the government must do what is "necessary to achieve strategic levels of self-sufficiency," and states that workers can be forcefully moved from their jobs to work in farm fields or elsewhere in the agricultural sector for periods of 60 days.

"Trying to tackle Venezuela's severe food shortages by forcing people to work the fields is like trying to fix a broken leg with a band aid," said Erika Guevara Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International, in a statement.The law is vague in laying out exactly which workers can be forced to work in the farm sector, though it indicates that both public- and private-sector workers may be included. While working in food production, workers will be suspended from their regular jobs. They'll be allowed to return to their original jobs upon the completion of service.

"The new decree completely misses the point when it comes to finding ways for Venezuela to crawl out of the deep crisis it has been submerged in for years," Rosas said. "Authorities in Venezuela must focus on requesting and getting much needed humanitarian aid to the millions in need across the country and develop a workable long term plan to tackle the crisis."

Under President Nicolas Maduro, the country has been gripped by skyrocketing inflation and food shortages that have led to rising unrest this year.

Venezuela's oil-dependent economy capsized with the fall in crude prices in 2014, leaving whole swaths of the country's 31 million people without enough food or other necessities. Inflation is expected to hit almost 720 percent this year, and gross domestic product is seen falling by 8 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Maduro's predecessor, Hugo Chavez, left the nation in a vulnerable economic position by nationalizing energy assets while oil prices were high and spending proceeds on widespread social programs. Oil's global drop in 2014 left the government far short of its revenue needs and with only an anemic private sector to generate taxes or jobs.

[vector7]

The photographer should watch Ferguson, Baltimore and be very afraid when the Marxists ensure it arrives here, I can only imagine how violent ours will differ.

One thing for sure is when it collapses it never comes back to what it once was before.

• 

Witnessing a ‘Complete Collapse of Society’ in Venezuela

• Olivier Laurent @olivierclaurent

Aug. 9, 2016

"I’m very scared of how it will end," says photographer Alvaro Ybarra Zavala

Alvaro Ybarra Zavala puts it bluntly: “Venezuela has become hell.”

The photographer had just returned from one of his latest trips to the South American nation when he talked to TIME, and he was visibly affected by the chaos he had witnessed there. “There’s a complete collapse of society,” he said.

Once an example for the continent, Venezuela is now a country in freefall. “It’s hard to find food, there’s no medicine,” said Ybarra Zavala. “If you have to have surgery, you need to bring everything with you: the bandages, the gloves, everything. There are no anesthetics.”

Ybarra Zavala was on assignment for TIME last month, chronicling the country’s breakdown. His photographs show daily street protests that are often violently repressed, empty shelves in deserted grocery stores and people lining up, sometimes for entire days, for gas. “No one believes anymore in the army, in the police, in the system,” said Ybarra Zavala.

Security has also become an issue. “There’s now a very strong element of luck,” he said. “Access is a real nightmare. Not only do you need to be careful of the government, but also from the colectivos [militant groups] and the local militias. You’re limited on time, you’re limited in access. It’s a continuous fight.”

In fact, says the photographer—who’s worked in Iraq, Afghanistan and Colombia—Venezuela is the “hardest place I’ve worked in,” he said.

The collapse, set in motion by Hugo Chavez’s 14-year reign, now seems irreversible, he adds: “For the last four years, Venezuela has been in constant crisis and it never blew up. But now, I’m very scared of how it will end. I think Venezuela crossed the line of no return. I’m worried what will happen next.”

But Ybarra Zavala is not giving up. While each trip is more dangerous than the previous one, the 36-year-old photographer is ready to go back. “Memories are very important,” he said. “I think the Bolivarian revolution is a lost opportunity for Latin America to change things that needed to be changed. It’s so sad to see how a true feeling of a society has failed so much. And it shows how dangerous populism can be.”

Alvaro Ybarra Zavala is a photographer based in Spain. He is represented by Getty Images Reportage.




Protesters opposed to the revolutionary government of Nicolas Maduro run from police during a march that became violent. Demonstrations by the Venezuelan opposition are constant throughout the country, June 2016.





A protestor sits in front of police during a demonstration in Caracas. The Venezuelan opposition is calling for a referendum to recall the current government of President Nicolás Maduro. Amid spiraling triple-digit inflation, recession and shortages, Venezuela is on the brink of political and economic collapse, June 2016.


A woman, upset about the fate of her incarcerated brother, cries at a police barricade. He was one of 600 people detained after riots at the National Police Station, June 2016.


The mother of Fredy Guerrero, who died after he was arrested by Venezuelan police, is consoled at his funeral. It took seven days before the 25-year old's body was returned to his family, June, 2016.


The wife of 25-year old Fredy Guerrero, who his family says was tortured and died while under police detention, cries at the grave of her husband, June 2016.


The young niece of 25 year-old Fredy Guerrero, who died after he was arrested by police, prepares to attend his funeral with other family members, June 2016.


An alleged thief is arrested by police in Caracas, Venezuela. The economic and political crisis in Venezuela has led to increased crime and abuses by police, May 2016.


Police arrest an alleged prostitute on the street in Caracas, Venezuela, June, 2016.


Members of an elite anti-kidnapping unit of the police during an operation in Caracas, Venezuela. The economic crisis has led to a steep increase in crime, May 2016.


The crisis in Caracas has gotten even more severe since May, with increased shortages of medicine, food and electricity, June 2016.


A bricklayer and his son look for food in a garbage dumpster in Caracas to take home to their family. Because of the crisis in Venezuela, he has neither a job nor enough money to feed his family, June 2016.


Some rural communities of Venezuela, like Las Veras in Barquisimeto, have been hard hit by the economic crisis, with shortages even worse than in the capital. Families make do with one meal a day, June 2016.


People line up for gas, which is needed for cooking and hot water. Because of severe shortages in the country, tension and discontent among the civilian population has grown resulting in outbreaks of violence and looting throughout the country, Barquisimeto, Venezuela, June 2016.


A main hallway in the Vargas Hospital in Caracas. Patients in Venezuelan hospitals are needlessly dying because of major shortages of important medicines, June 2016.


Two patients in the Vargas Hospital in Caracas, Venezuela. Because of shortages of food and medical supplies, patients are not receiving necessary care, June 2016.


Bendiré looks out the window of her apartment in Caracas, which she shares with six other families. After five p.m., she does not go outside fearing crime in the neighborhood, June 2016.


Images of former President Hugo Chavez are still pervasive around Venezuela, along with anti-imperialist and revolutionary propaganda graffiti. For the Venezuelan government, the personality cult surrounding the Bolivarian leader helps keep the spirit of the revolution alive, Caracas, July 2015.


Posters of political prisoner Leopoldo Lopez hang on a wall in Caracas. The Venezuelan government of President Nicolas Maduro has been widely condemned for its treatment of the political opposition, including most notably Leopoldo Lopez, leader of the opposition, who is serving a 14-year sentence, June, 2016.


A picture of late President and leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, Hugo Chavez, hangs on a wall inside a shopping complex in Caracas. Anti-imperialist and revolutionary propaganda is commonplace throughout the country, July 2015.


A stenciled picture showing the eyes of former President Hugo Chavez, leader of the Bolivarian revolution, is seen from the inside of a taxi, Caracas, June 2016


Severe food shortages often result in bare refrigerators, like this one in the home of Don Jose Luis, Barquisimeto, Venezuela, June 2016.


A woman stands before empty shelves in one of the major supermarkets in Caracas. The severe political crisis has pushed the country a deep economic decline. Sept. 2015.


A slum in Caracas, one of the many poor neighborhoods that were strongholds of the Chavez regime, Nov. 2009.


The Tower of David in Caracas was the worlds largest vertical slum, until its inhabitants were evicted. Insecurity and violence plagues the neighboring district around the tower, July 2015


Catia is one of the many slums in Caracas and a traditional stronghold of criminal gangs, known as colectivos. Supported by the government of President Hugo Chavez, the colectivos became ideologically left wing groups that helped serve the Bolivarian revolution, 2009.


Police during an operation in the neighborhood of Petare, which is is one of the most troubled and violent areas of the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, March 2013.


Members of a colectivos with their weapons stand in front of the Venezuelan flag. Colectivos are criminal gangs that were introduced to political ideology by the administration of President Hugo Chavez. They see themselves as the guardians of the Bolivarian revolution, and have been accused of carrying out politically motivated killings, Oct. 2009.


Members of a criminal gang lookout over their neighborhood in Caracas. Their faces are covered to avoid being identified by police, Caracas, Sept. 2015


The body of a civilian killed by a colectivo, a paramilitary group supported by the government. According to the man's family, he was killed for being politically opposed to President Hugo Chavez. Colectivos control the neighborhoods in their territory, Caracas, 2009.

"There is only the Fight”

By: Andrew Walden
FrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, August 21, 2007



Hillary Clinton has a written life plan, but there have been only two copies available to the public—until now. Written in 1969, and kept under lock and key during her years as First Lady, Hillary’s Wellesley College senior thesis has only been readable in person at the campus library and in a single microfilm copy made available to individual researchers on inter-library loan. Clinton lawyers have previously blocked people who sought to make it public.

A read of the 92-page thesis, titled “There is only the Fight, An Analysis of the Alinsky model” makes it clear why the Clintons wanted this document suppressed. Hillary doesn’t just want to pass laws or implement policy. Hillary explains: “If the ideals Alinsky espouses were actualized, the result would be social revolution.” Somehow, recent articles on the thesis by the Washington Post, Boston Globe and MSNBC all missed this little detail.

Read Hillary’s thesis here: http://gopublius.com/hillary-clintons-wellesley-thesis
In her alleged autobiography, Living History, Hillary explains the importance her thesis:

“My senior year at Wellesley would further test and articulate my beliefs. For my thesis I analyzed the work of a Chicago native and community organizer named Saul Alinsky…I agreed with some of Alinsky’s ideas…but we had a fundamental disagreement. (Alinsky) believed you could change the system only from the outside. I didn’t.…my decision (to go to law school instead of training as an Alinsky organizer) was an expression of my belief that the system could be changed from within.” This is critical to understanding Hillary’s life plan. Also notable are the many things about Alinsky which did not

Saul Alinsky (1909-1972) was one of the nation’s foremost community organizers, publishing several books and creating organizations which continue today. He gave a wide ranging Playboy Magazine interview shortly before his death. In it he gives a detailed description of his 1930s life as a communist fellow-traveler.

Alinsky told Playboy, “I knew plenty of Communists in those days, and I worked with them on a number of projects. Back in the Thirties, the Communists did a hell of a lot of good work…. Anybody who tells you he was active in progressive causes in those days and never worked with the Reds is a goddamn liar. Their platform stood for all the right things, and unlike many liberals, they were willing to put their bodies on the line. Without the Communists, for example, I doubt the C.I.O. could have won all the battles it did. I was also sympathetic to Russia in those days, not because I admired Stalin or the Soviet system but because it seemed to be the only country willing to stand up to Hitler. I was in charge of a big part of fund raising for the International Brigade and in that capacity I worked in close alliance with the Communist Party.

“When the Nazi-Soviet Pact came, though, and I refused to toe the party line and urged support for England and for American intervention in the war, the party turned on me tooth and nail. Chicago Reds plastered the Back of the Yards with big posters featuring a caricature of me with a snarling, slavering fanged mouth and wild eyes, labeled, ‘This is the face of a warmonger.’"

Alinsky’s roots, are in the corrupt machine politics of Chicago—also Hillary’s hometown. In the Playboy interview, Alinsky also describes his close work with mobster Frank Nitti and Al Capone’s gang and his relationship with the emerging CIO and the Roosevelt administration. He describes how he used these connections to make a 1930s deal with then-Chicago Mayor Edward Kelly to deliver a meatpackers’ union contract—one of his earliest “organizing” victories.

Interviewed about “A Woman in Charge”, his biography of Hillary Clinton, Carl Bernstein explains, “She chose Yale (in 1969) because, unlike Harvard, where she had also been accepted, it was an activist school that very much believed in the use of the law as an instrument for social change—in the mold of Thurgood Marshall…. This was the year of the Black Panther trial in New Haven. She monitored the trial to see if there were any abuses of the rights of the Panthers on trial, and helped schedule the monitors. Her reports were turned over to the ACLU.

“That summer she went to work at the most important radical law firm in America at that point: Truehaft, Walker and Bernstein in Oakland. They defended the Panthers. Two of their partners were members of the Communist Party—including Bob Truehaft, who was married to Jessica Mitford. I talked to Bob Truehaft not long before he died, and he said he was certain that Hillary came there because she subscribed to some of the kind of law they practiced and the kind of clients they defended. In her so-called autobiography, ‘Living History,’ she put in a couple of sentences about living in Berkeley with Bill that summer and working at that law firm, but she makes it sound like their work focused on postal rate increases. There’s not a word about radicals.”

In spite of the Clintons’ efforts to suppress information about this period, Hillary often refers back to it. In the July 23, 2007 Democrat presidential debate Hillary pointed out, “I have 35 years of being a change agent.” In a January 22, 2007 interview Hillary again referred to the same touchstone: “Bill and I started a conversation 35 years ago about our country.” In an 1993 Washington Post article, Hillary invoked her thesis in defense of nationalized health care and pointed out: “You know, I've been on this kick for 25 years.”

This probably explains the efforts by Clinton backers to deflect attention from the thesis.

Wellesley emeritus professor Alan Schechter a Clinton donor and friend calls the idea that her thesis is a key to understanding her character, “moronic”. Interviewed earlier this year by MSNBC, his blustering semi-literate response is another clue to the thesis’ importance.

It is easy to label Alinsky “communist” and be done with it. But that would cost the reader the opportunity to study the inner nature of Alinsky’s activities. It is that inner nature which plays itself out over three decades later in Hillary’s quest for power. As Hillary explains:

“Alinsky outlines American history focusing on men he would call ‘radical’, confronting his readers again with the ‘unique’ way Americans have synthesized the alien roots of radicalism, Marxism, Utopian socialism, syndicalism, the French revolution …”

Alinsky’s experience with the gangs and his lifelong symbiosis with Chicago machine are part of that synthesis. Alinsky believed that the end justified any means. This common amoral attitude has led many radicals over the cliff. The Alinsky difference? The Washington Post points out: “To mark his differences with the bomb-throwers, he subtitled his second book ‘A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals.’" That pragmatism and the absolute belief in his own rightness were his only moral compasses as a community organizer.

In the MSNBC article, Schechter clumsily tries to distance Hillary from Alinsky: “…she's not a radical at all. I think she's very mainstream. She's a pragmatist. She's a much more thoughtful, cautious, careful, pragmatic person…” Of course Alinsky’s organizing technique was the application of pragmatism to radicalism. Schechter is perhaps laughing at an American public he sees as ignorant. But his arrogance is brittle. Given Hillary’s high negative poll ratings, it may be the American voter who has the last laugh. Clinton critic Peggy Noonan is exactly right when she describes Hillary’s senior thesis as the, “Rosetta stone of Hillary studies.”

While claiming radicals represent democracy, Hillary makes no bones about the connection between Alinsky’s successes and machine politics. Speaking of Alinsky’s signature community organizing effort in The Back of The Yards, a run-down Chicago neighborhood, Hillary explains: “… much of the community’s influence is traceable not to its ‘burning passion’ but to its most illustrious resident, Mayor Richard J. Daley. Mayor Dailey’s assumption of political power in the early 1950s curiously parallels the Council’s growth in power. Many of the mayor’s staff are also residents and share the mayor’s loyalty to the neighborhood.” (P 21-22)

In 2000, the late Barbara Olson got a copy of Hillary’s thesis and noted: “Perhaps the most prescient part of the thesis is a quote from a profile of Alinsky in The Economist: ‘His charm lies in his ability to commit himself completely to the people in the room with him. In a shrewd though subtle way, he often manipulates them while speaking directly to their experience.’ Although her thesis was written several years before she cornered Bill Clinton in the Yale Law School library, Hillary had come to recognize the potential power of a man of exceptional charm.”

Since it has remained effectively hidden for most of 38 years it cannot be said that the thesis guided anybody’s actions other than Hillary’s—but that makes the document more significant, not less. “There is only the fight” starts from the end of Alinsky’s life to anticipate the path her fellow radicals would soon begin taking from campus activism to positions of power as the bureaucrats, journalists, academics, and elected officials of today. Hillary then charts the course which will place her at the head of this transformed cultural, intellectual and power elite.

Communists seek to acquire power through social revolution and then re-shape man. Hillary’s theme is the same as Alinsky’s: Acquire power and use it to re-shape man through social revolution. For the past three and a half decades the radicals whose formative experiences were shaped by the year 1968 have been doing exactly that. As Hillary explains:

“A Radical is one who advocates sweeping changes in existing laws and methods of government. These proposed changes are aimed at the roots of political problems which in Marxian terms are the attitudes and behaviors of men.” (P 10)

In Living History, Hillary explains: “He (Alinsky) believed you could change the system only from the outside. I didn’t. …my decision (to go to law school instead of training as an Alinsky organizer) was an expression of my belief that the system could be changed from within.” Graduating from Wellesley, Hillary went on to Yale Law School—perhaps the ultimate “insider” preparation. The path she chose not to take is appended to her thesis: a written invitation from Alinsky to join his “Industrial Areas Foundation Training Institute”. cause Hillary to have “fundamental disagreement.”

The Washington Post also points out Alinsky as a point of reference for Hillary: “…She told an interviewer shortly after Bill Clinton became president that government programs were too often administered from on high, with too little effect. ‘I basically argued that [Alinsky] was right. Even at that early stage, I was against all these people who came up with these big government programs that were more supportive of bureaucracies than actually helpful to people. You know, I've been on this kick for 25 years.’”

Hillary’s thinking, described extensively in her thesis as part of a joint Hillary-Alinsky critique of the War on Poverty, may underlie the eventual Clinton acquiescence to the mid-1990s welfare reforms imposed by the Republican-controlled Congress. While free-marketers view social programs as stifling individual economic initiative, Hillary viewed the stultifying effects of dependency creating programs as an obstacle to radicalizing the recipients. Unlike small-government conservatives, Hillary does not oppose massive federal programs, she wants to use them in a way which polarizes and politicizes the nation.

Hillary quotes one Chicago official of Lyndon Johnson’s ‘War on poverty’ talking about the Temporary Woodlawn Organization, an Alinsky group:

“We … believe it imperative that some means be developed to reclaim these poor, hard-core youth…to test whether the mechanisms of the gang structures could not assist in shifting attitudes toward productive adult citizenship.” She then quotes Nathan Glazer describing the involvement of gangs in Alinsky’s TWO group: “(it is as if) someone had been convinced by a sociologist that change and reform are spurred by conflict and decided that, since all good things can come from the American Government, it ought to provide conflict, too.” (p 34-35)

This is not the only connection between gang violence and Alinsky organizations. Hillary later notes, “The relationship between the Newark riots in the summer of 1967, and the local poverty agency which was one of the few in the country to operate autonomously, is still a matter of investigation.” It was these ‘polarizing’ events which transformed black voters from solid Republicans to being over 90% Democrats. As ethnic whites headed to the suburbs, American cities controlled by segregation-oriented Democrat political machines were transformed into political bastions of radicalism. Decades later the result can be seen in decaying, crime-riddled northern inner cities often represented by America’s most extreme elected leftists.

Hillary argues, “Alinsky claims a position of moral relativism, but his moral context is stabilized by a belief in the eventual manifestation of the goodness of man. … the main driving force behind his push for organization is the effect that belonging to a group working for a common purpose has on the men he has organized.” (p. 10) This rhetoric is familiar to anybody who has listened to leftist apologetics for the human rights abuses of socialist regimes. All means are justified by a theoretical end which is somehow never reached.

Hillary gushes orgasmicly: “The key word for an Alinsky-type organizing effort is ‘power.’ The question is how one acquires power, and Alinsky’s answer is through organization… For Alinsky, power is the ‘very essence of life, the dynamic of life’ and is found in ‘…active citizen participation pulsing upward providing a unified strength for a common purpose of organization….’” (P. 7-8)

What is the “social revolution” Hillary and the radicals-cum-insiders want? Hillary doesn’t want to merely make law or implement policy; she wants to re-shape humanity in her own image. She explains: “A radical is one who advocates sweeping changes in the existing laws and methods of government. These proposed changes are aimed at the roots of political problems which in Marxian terms are the attitudes and the behaviors of men.” (p. 6)

How will Hillary bring about the new man? Hillary -- currently the most polarizing figure in American politics -- wrote 38 years ago: “…polarization between those who believed in him and those who denounced him as a hate-monger delighted Alinsky: ‘In order to organize, you must first polarize. People think of controversy as negative; they think consensus is better. But to organize, you need a Bull Connor or a Jim Clark.’”

The purpose of organizing is not to achieve the stated goals of the organizers, but to create the new man. “…the main driving force behind his push for organization is the effect that belonging to a group working for a common purpose has on the men he has organized.” There is only the fight—any stated cause is secondary to the goal of creating the new man. This knowledge is necessary to any understanding of the left in America today.

If there indeed is “only the fight.” Then what else is left of life? In her 1969 commencement speech at Wellesley, Hillary said, “Every protest, every dissent… is unabashedly an attempt to forge an identity in this particular age. That attempt at forging for many of us over the past four years has meant coming to terms with our humanness.” For Hillary when she says “only” the fight, she really means it. “The fight” is her identity. In order to make “the fight” everyone’s identity, “political correctness” was invented.

Her 1969 commencement address, a denunciation of Republican Sen. Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, the first black US Senator elected in over 100 years, did forge Hillary’s identity. As Carl Bernstein points out, “When he finished, Hillary got up and extemporaneously excoriated him. As a result of that speech, she was featured in Life magazine as exemplary of this new generation of student leaders. They ran a picture of her in pedal pushers and her Coke-bottle glasses. That article made her well known in the student movement in the U.S. …When she arrived (at Yale), her reputation preceded her. It was perhaps greater than her real accomplishments. She was becoming a generational spokesperson, anointed by others. That’s when she met Bill; at that point she was much more famous that he was.”

Hillary describes an Alinsky speech: “‘Is There Life After Birth?’, presented before the Episcopal Theological Seminary in 1967…Alinsky concludes that what is at stake is our individual and collective sanity. Unlike the philosopher or artist, he looks for salvation in the political system.” (p. 68-69) Life itself flows from the political system. Believers may note where it is that Alinsky and Hillary do not look for ‘salvation’.

The view of life as political power may help explain Hillary’s recent proposal to create a national public service academy modeled on military academies. She wants to create an even-larger cadre of people whose entire existence revolves around the acquisition and use of power. Ironically, as Hillary made the announcement July 28 at a College Democrats conference in South Carolina, a heckler waving a sign reading, “She doesn't care, all she wants is the power” was hustled out of the auditorium.

Hillary’s point of departure from Alinsky is not really a difference. Like all socialists, Alinsky and Hillary find themselves starting from the ruins of past failures.

As Hillary explains: “One of the people who now recognizes (sic) the anachronistic nature of small autonomous conflict organizations is Alinsky himself. A critique of the power/conflict model for community organization in 1969 can no longer be a critique of the Alinsky-method because that method has undergone a significant evolution since its coalescence in 1939. Those who build models frequently leave their obsolescent ruins behind them for others to play with while they begin building anew. Alinsky’s evolution within the context of the last thirty years places in relief America’s great challenge: the search for a viable community….” (p. 61)

The post WW2 period was marked by massive wealth-creation and the establishment of the “viable communities” known as suburbs. Americans first voted with their feet and were then pushed by urban disturbances created in part by federal funds distributed under the ‘War on Poverty’.

Hillary and Alinsky focus not on this socio-economic transformation, but on the reduced opportunities for power based on radicalization of the shrunken population left behind in the cities. More than two decades of post-war economic prosperity literally yanked the poor out from under Alinsky leaving “ruins” of the former Alinsky model. Prosperity, founded on private property, undermines the potential for radical social revolution. Hillary quotes Alinsky: “The radical places human rights far above property rights.” (p 6)

Hillary’s plan to slip this trap leads her to desire massive Federal power to use as a post-industrial era replacement for community organizing. She explains: “A primary reason for the obsolescence of (Alinsky’s) power/conflict model is that the unit to which it applies, the territorially-defined community, is no longer a workable societal unit. …

Accompanying the decline of the traditional neighborhood as a living unit were the massive centralization of power on the federal level and the growth of the suburbs. Federal centralization reduced local and state power…(p. 62)

“Alinsky, when asked by Daniel P. Moynihan to work with the new Nixon administration, grandiosely offered Moynihan his plans for solving the urban crisis, the destruction of the environment, and the dissatisfaction of the citizenry. He urged the establishment of work projects in the Southwest to bring water to that area, in the Middle West to save the Great Lakes, in the Mississippi Valley to prevent flooding and in any other part of the country where men and women are needed to counteract modernity’s assault on the land…. (p 73) (Apparently massive public works do not constitute ‘modernity’.)

“Alinsky's proposals carry obvious spin-off effects. The need for workers could be filled from among the un- and under-employed in the cities. The model integrated communities constructed to house the workers would be self-governing. The projects, administered by bureaucrats and staffed by credentialed experts, would provide attractive recompense and job satisfaction to lure people away from the megalopoli.” (p. 73)

For Hillary, even world war and economic depression are seen in terms of their political impact: “When one moves beyond the city and local issues, the idea of independent national organizing seems impossible. The Depression demonstrated the feasibility of federally controlled planning, and a massive war effort convinced us of its necessity.” (p. 72)

This should inform any understanding of the Clinton critique of President Bush’s handling of the War on Terror. Limited war does not convince anybody of the necessity of “federally controlled planning.” Those expecting her to bring peace may be in for a big surprise if she wins the Presidency in 2008.

Hillary’s life work has been to acquire and use Federal Power to polarize Americans and through conflict create the new man. A Hillary Presidency could be the last chance for her aging generation of campus radicals to remake America in their own image.




Who was Saul Alinsky?

by Jed Babbin
03/09/2007

That Hillary Clinton’s college thesis was a paen to Saul Alinsky will be the subject of much politico-psychoanalysis for years to come. As HUMAN EVENTS Assistant Editor Amanda Carpenter’s article makes clear, the study of Alinsky’s methods apparently created much of Sen. Clinton’s political persona, and formed the basis of her political methodology. So who was Alinsky?

Alinsky was born in Chicago in 1909. Hillary Rodham’s thesis is very revealing of Alinsky’s view of American life. It says, “…after graduating from the University of Chicago, Alinsky received a fellowship in criminology with a first assignment to get a look at crime from the inside of gangs. He attached himself to the Capone gang, attaining a perspective from which he viewed the gang as a huge quasi-public utility serving the people of Chicago.”Alinsky -- in that and other experiences -- became an academic-turned-radical, a personality type first found among the press covering the Russian revolution of 1917-18 and that became much more common five decades later, forming the basis of the Vietnam anti-war movement. He and others like him would find America’s adversaries -- within and outside the law -- more attractive than America itself.

Saul Alinsky’s radicalism was expressed in his 1971 book, “Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals.” In that book, Alinsky said, “Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins -- or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom -- Lucifer.” Alinsky never saw himself as the devil, but as some radical angel who could bedevil “the Establishment” and force it to change to assuage pressures from community organizations.

In her closing, Hillary compared Alinsky to others who had been feared, “… as the proponent of a dangerous socio/political philosophy…just as Eugene Debs, Walt Whitman or Martin Luther King had been feared, because each embraced the most radical of political faiths -- democracy.” Ms. Rodham apparently admired those three in the same manner and degree that she admired Alinsky.

Young Hillary Rodham’s admiration of Alinsky is, in a way, revealing of her young self. In one part of the thesis, she quotes an article from The Economist that called Alinsky, “Plato on the Barricades”:

His charm lies in his ability to commit himself completely to the people in the room with him. In a shrewd though subtle way he often manipulates them while speaking directly to their experience. Still he is a man totally at ease with himself, mainly because he loves his work which always seems to be changing -- new communities, new contests, new fights.

But that is a description of the young Bill Clinton as much as it is of Alinsky. Alinsky died in 1972. Bill and Hillary Clinton married in 1975. We will never know if she was drawn to him because she saw a reflection of her lost radical hero.

Saul Alinsky Quotes

• 

• Never let a crisis go to waste
  Saul Alinsky
  Waste, Crisis
  

• They have the guns and therefore we are for peace and for reformation through the ballot. When we have the guns then it will be through the bullet.
  Saul Alinsky
  Gun, Bullets, Ballots

• True revolutionaries do not flaunt their radicalism. They cut their hair, put on suits and infiltrate the system from within.
  Saul Alinsky
  Cutting, Hair, Radicalism
  
  
• Change means movement. Movement means friction. Only in the frictionless vacuum of a nonexistent abstract world can movement or change occur without that abrasive friction of conflict.
  Saul Alinsky
  Change, Mean, Movement

• The despair is there; now it's up to us to go in and rub raw the sores of discontent, galvanize them for radical social change.
  Saul Alinsky

• The fourth rule is: "Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules." You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.
  Saul Alinsky
  Christian, Book, Enemy
• Lest we forget at least an over the shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins - or which is which), the very first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom - Lucifer.
  Saul Alinsky
  Men, Legends, Kingdoms
  
• From the moment an organizer enters a community, he lives, dreams, eats, breathes, sleeps only one thing, and that is to build the mass power base of what he calls the army.
  Saul Alinsky
  Dream, Sleep, Army
• The most effective means are whatever will achieve the desired results.
  Saul Alinsky
  Mean, Achieve, Results
  
• Theres another reason for working inside the system. Dostoevsky said that taking a new step is what people fear most. Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution.
  Saul Alinsky
  Letting Go, Attitude, Acceptance
• Organization for action will now and in the decade ahead center upon America's white middle class. That is where the power is. ... Our rebels have contemptuously rejected the values and the way of life of the middle class. They have stigmatized it as materialistic, decadent, bourgeois, degenerate, imperialistic, war-mongering, brutalized and corrupt. They are right; but we must begin from where we are if we are to build power for change, and the power and the people are in the middle class majority.
  Saul Alinsky
  War, Class, Organization
• The greatest enemy of individual freedom is the individual himself.
  Saul Alinsky
  4th Of July, Enemy, Individual
• In the beginning the organizer's first job is to create the issues or problems.
  Saul Alinsky
  Jobs, Issues, Firsts
  save quote report
  
• Radicals must be resilient, adaptable to shifting political circumstances, and sensitive enough to the process of action and reaction to avoid being trapped by their own tactics and forced to travel a road not of their choosing.
  Saul Alinsky
  Political, Tactics, Shifting
• The establishment can accept being screwed, but not being laughed at
  Saul Alinsky
  Accepting, Establishment, Laughed
• The first step in community organization is community disorganization. The disruption of the present organization is the first step toward community organization. Present arrangements must be disorganized if they are to be displace by new patterns.... All change means disorganization of the old and organization of the new.
  Saul Alinsky
  Mean, Organization, Community
• Action comes from keeping the heat on. No politician can sit on a hot issue if you make it hot enough.
  Saul Alinsky
  Issues, Hot, Heat
• If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.
  Saul Alinsky
  Negative, Enough, Rules For Radicals
• A Marxist begins with his prime truth that all evils are caused by the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists. From this he logically proceeds to the revolution to end capitalism, then into the third stage of reorganization into a new social order of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and finally the last stage -- the political paradise of communism.
  Saul Alinsky
  Order, Evil, Political
• The preferred world can be seen any evening on television in the succession of programs where the good always wins
  Saul Alinsky
  Winning, World, Evening
• Liberals like people with their heads, radicals like people with both their heads and their hearts.
  Saul Alinsky
  Heart, People, Radical
  save quote report
  
• If people don't think they have the power to solve their problems, they won't even think about how to solve them.
  Saul Alinsky
  Thinking, People, Problem
  
• Control healthcare and you control the people
  Saul Alinsky
  People, Healthcare, Rules For Radicals

• Let the liberal turn to the course of action, the course of all radicals, and the amused look vanishes from the face of society as it snarls, “That’s radical!” Society has good reason to fear the radical. Every shaking advance of mankind toward equality and justice has come from the radical. He hits, he hurts, he is dangerous. Conservative interests know that while liberals are most adept at breaking their own necks with their tongues, radicals are most adept at breaking the necks of conservatives.
  Saul Alinsky
  Hurt, Justice, Looks
  
• The end is what you want and the means is how you get it.
  Saul Alinsky
  Mean, Want, Ends
• No issue can be negotiated unless you first have the clout to compel negotiation.
  Saul Alinsky
  Issues, Firsts, Negotiation
• The practical revolutionary will understand Goethe's 'conscience is the virtue of observers and not of agents of action'; in action, one does not always enjoy the luxury of a decision that is consistent both with one's individual conscience and the good of mankind.
  Saul Alinsky
  Luxury, Decision, Doe
  
  Curiosity and irreverence go together. Curiosity cannot exist without the other. Curiosity asks, "Is this true?" "Just because this has always been the way, is the best or right way of life, the best or right religion, political or economic value, morality?" To the questioner, nothing is sacred. He detests dogma, defies any finite definition of morality, rebels against any repression of a free, open search of ideas no matter where they may lead. He is challenging, insulting, agitating, discrediting. He stirs unrest.
  Saul Alinsky
  Ideas, Economic Value, Political
  
  The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.
  Saul Alinsky
  Radical, Rules For Radicals, Written
  
  Change means movement. Movement means friction.
  Saul Alinsky
  Change, Mean, Movement
• We must believe that it is the darkest before the dawn of a beautiful new world. We will see it when we believe it.
  Saul Alinsky
  Beautiful, Faith, Believe
• Tactics mean doing what you can with what you have.
  Saul Alinsky
  Mean, Creativity, New Beginnings
• Always remember the first rule of power tactics; power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
  Saul Alinsky
  Thinking, Power, Enemy
• The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength.
  Saul Alinsky
  Enemy, Reactions, Rules For Radicals

[Ryan Ruck]

Funny how this is happening essentially in our back yard yet there is a near complete media blackout on it.

Almost like they want to hide the failure of yet another Socialist state...

[Malsua]

Socialism is only a failure because they didn't have enough power to properly control the economy.

[Ryan Ruck]

Socialism is only a failure because they didn't have enough power to properly control the economy.

And other peoples' money.

The problem is it just hasn't been done right yet...

[vector7]

Prisoners STARVE to death in Venezuela's jails as country's economic collapse sees food and medicine run out

• Shocking images show emaciated prisoners in a jail in central Venezuela
  
• Starving inmates seen begging for help from the outside world in a video
• Venezuela gripped by economoc crisis ever since fall in global oil prices

By Julian Robinson for MailOnline

Published: 06:32 EST, 10 October 2016 | Updated: 07:56 EST, 10 October 2016

These shocking images show how prisoners are starving to death in Venezuela's jails as food and medicine continues to run out amid economic collapse in the country.

Video smuggled out of a jail at San Juan de los Morros, in the central Guarico region of Venezuela, show emaciated inmates struggling to survive.

With the country in the grip of a crippling economic crisis, starving prisoners can be seen standing in line and begging for help from the outside world.

Venezuelan prisoners struggle to survive due to lack of food



Shocking images show how prisoners are starving to death in Venezuela's jails as food and medicine continues to run out amid economic collapse in the country



Video smuggled out of a jail at San Juan de los Morros, in the central Guarico region of Venezuela, show emaciated inmates struggling to survive

Venezuela's economy is in a tailspin, with shortages of items from disinfectant to chemotherapy drugs crippling the health sector and leaving 30 million citizens struggling to access basic medical care.

Food queues, hyperinflation and mass looting have been part of daily life since a fall in global oil prices left its economy on its knees.

The prison footage was reportedly filmed by inmate Franklin Paul Hernandez Quezad.

One prisoner was said to be so weak he had to be lifted into a chair to be filmed.



One prisoner has reportedly died from starvation and disease at the jail in central Venezuela



The prison footage was reportedly filmed by inmate Franklin Paul Hernandez Quezad and shows men lining up to beg for help



One of the men says to the camera: 'Look at me, look at the state we are in, we need medicine in order to survive'

Another is said to have died from starvation and disease.

One of the men says to the camera: 'Look at me, look at the state we are in, we need medicine in order to survive.'Another inmate in what appears to be a wheelchair also asks for medicine: 'We are all human beings and we need a second chance.'

And the third echoes the sentiment saying: 'Please, don't leave us to die in here, help us brothers. We do not want to die.'



Images also show prisoners being given food at the jail in central Venezuela

Outraged relatives of the inmates have demanded that authorities step in to investigate

The person recording the video says: 'The media needs to know what is happening here.'

There are claims in local media that Venezuelan police had apparently blocked deliveries of food, medicine and water to the prison.

The allegations have caused outrage with prisoners' relatives who have asked the authorities to step in.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz4Ms96BRYB
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From 'Socialist Utopia' To 'Silence Of The Lambs' - Venezuela's Overcrowded Prisons Devolve Into Cannibalism

by Tyler Durden
Oct 18, 2016 9:15 PM

Once a flagship socialist nation, Venezuela has now devolved into complete chaos as declining oil revenue has resulted in economic ruin, massive inflation, food shortages and spikes in violent crime. The increasing criminal activity has led to massive overcrowding of Venezuelan jails where felons have been forced to live in squalid conditions.

According to the Independent, one such overcrowded facility was Táchira Detention Center where 350 inmates were housed despite the facility's capacity for only 120 people. Earlier this month, the adverse living conditions, including insufficient rations for inmates, at the facility resulted in riots that devolved into complete chaos as numerous visitors were taken hostage and 2 inmates were "stabbed, hanged to bleed, and then fed to the detainees." The gruesome event was orchestrated by a man named Dorancel Vargas (aka "People Eater) who was jailed in 1999 for cannibalism.

Juan Carlos Herrara told local media his son, Juan Carlos Herrera Jr, was stabbed, hanged, dismembered and then eaten at the Táchira Detention Center.

According to reports, 350 men had been crammed into the detention centre, which has a capacity of 120.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, after a visit to the prison three days after the mutiny had subsided, Mr Herrara said: “One of those who was with him when he was murdered saw everything that happened.

"My son and two others were taken by 40 people, stabbed, hanged to bleed, and then Dorancel butchered them to feed all detainees,” referring to the notorious Dorancel “people-eater” Vargas - jailed in 1999 for cannibalism.

"The [inmate] with whom I spoke to told me that he was beaten with a hammer [in order] to force him to eat the remains of the two boys.

"I beg you to give me at least one bone so we can bury him and relieve some of this pain."


"They cut them up and fed them to several [of the fellow inmates], they made the bones disappear. Dorancel cut the flesh."

Of course, we have written numerous times recently about the devolving economic crisis in Venezuela that has resulted in severe shortages of food, clean water, electricity, medicines and hospital supplies all of which have resulted in a desperate population which has resorted to the black market and violence for survival.

Below is a good recap of the current situation from a recent post.

* * *
Submitted by Susan Warner via The Gatestone Institute,

For many Venezuelans, by every economic, social and political measure, their nation is unravelling at breakneck speed.

Today, a once comfortable middle-class Venezuelan father is scrambling desperately to find his family's next meal -- sometimes hunting through garbage for salvageable food. The unfortunate 75% majority of Venezuelans already suffering extreme poverty are reportedly verging on starvation.

Darkness is falling on Hugo Chavez's once-famous "Bolivarian revolution" that some policy experts, only a short time ago, thought would never end.
In a 2007 study on the Chavez years for the Washington, DC-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, Mark Weisbrot and Luis Sandoval wrote:

"[a]t present it does not appear that the current economic expansion is about to end any time in the near future. The gains in poverty reduction, employment, education and health care that have occurred in the last few years are likely to continue along with the expansion."

While it was not so long ago that many people heralded Venezuela as Latin America's successful utopian Socialist experiment, something has gone dreadfully wrong as the revolution's Marxist founder, Hugo Chavez, turned his Chavismo dream into an economic nightmare of unimaginable proportions.

The question of whether Socialism can be an effective economic system was famously raised when Margaret Thatcher said of the British Labor Party:

"I think they've made the biggest financial mess that any government's ever made in this country for a very long time, and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them. They then start to nationalise everything, and people just do not like more and more nationalisation, and they're now trying to control everything by other means."

In short: "The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."

When President Nicolas Maduro inherited the Venezuelan Socialist "dream", in April of 2013, just one month after Chavez died, he was facing a mere 53% inflation rate.

Today the Venezuelan bolivar is virtually worthless, and inflation is creeping to 500% with expectations of much more. A recent Washington Post report stated:

" ...markets expect Venezuela to default on its debt in the very near future. The country is basically bankrupt. It is not easy for a nation to go bankrupt with the largest oil reserves in the world, but Venezuela has managed it. How? Well, a combination of bad luck and worse policies. The first step was when Hugo Chávez's socialist government started spending more money on the poor, with everything from two-cent gasoline to free housing. That may all seem like it's a good idea in general — but only as long as there's money to spend. And by 2005 or so, Venezuela didn't have any."

Chavez had the good fortune to die just before the grim reaper showed up on Venezuela's doorstep. According to policy specialist Jose Cardenas:

"What began as a war against the 'squalid' oligarchy in order to build what he called '21st-century socialism' -- cheered on as he was by many leftists from abroad -- has collapsed into an unprecedented heap of misery and conflict."

Maduro is doubling down on the failed Chavismo economic and social policies that have contributed to an inflationary crisis not seen since the days of the 1920's Weimar Republic in Germany, when the cost of a loaf of bread was a wheelbarrow full of cash.

Demonstrations and public cries for food are the unpleasant evidence of a once-prosperous society being torn apart by the very largess that marked its utopian ideals less than a decade ago.

There are dire reports of people waiting in supermarket lines all day, only to discover that expected food deliveries never arrived and the shelves are empty.

In desperation, some middle class families have organized online barter clubs as helpless citizens seek to trade anything for diapers and baby food, powdered milk, medicines, toilet paper and other essentials missing from store shelves or available only on the black market for double and triple already impossibly inflated prices.

There are horrific tales of desperate people slaughtering zoo animals to provide their only meal of the day. Even household pets are targeted as a much-needed source for food. This is a desperate time for a desperate people.

As things continue to worsen, President Maduro, unfortunately, is doubling down on the proven failed policies and philosophies of "Bolivarian Socialism," while diverting attention away from the crisis -- pointing fingers at so-called "enemies" of Venezuela such as the United States, Saudi Arabia and others.
Efforts to convince Maduro to enlist help from outside have failed, according to a report in the Catholic magazine, Crux:

Maduro has refused to accept help from international charitable organizations, including the Vatican-sponsored Caritas Internationalis, which through different affiliates has tried to send medicine and food.

"Denying that there's a crisis and refusing to let the world send medicine and food is not possible," said Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino, archbishop of Caracas.

The prelate believes that Maduro is refusing to accept help in an attempt to hide the "very grave situation of total shortage," which far from improving, he said, continues to deteriorate.

According to Breitbart:

"The Venezuelan Episcopal Conference, the organization of the nation's Catholic bishops, issued a scathing statement condemning president Maduro for giving the military full control of the nation's food supply, accusing him of being at the helm of a devastating "moral crisis" and crippling every aspect of life in Venezuela."

In what some economists have been calling a "death spiral", the government's failed economic policies are at the same time causing and trying to stem a runaway inflation with price-fixing policies which, in turn, are triggering shortages. Maduro is strongly urging businesses and farmers to sell their goods at severe losses, forcing shut-downs when the cost of doing business becomes prohibitive.

According to a recent Bloomberg report, the black market is thriving because goods are unavailable at prices fixed by the government. There are reports of ordinary people quitting inadequate-paying jobs to set up black market operations, hoping to be able to make enough to sustain life.
A dozen eggs was last reported to cost $150, and the International Monetary Fund "predicts that inflation in Venezuela will hit 720% this year. That might be an optimistic assessment, according to some local economic analysts, who expect the rate to reach as high as 1,200%."
According to a Bloomberg report from April:

"In a tale that highlights the chaos of unbridled inflation, Venezuela is scrambling to print new bills fast enough to keep up with the torrid pace of price increases. Most of the cash, like nearly everything else in the oil-exporting country, is imported. And with hard currency reserves sinking to critically low levels, the central bank is doling out payments so slowly to foreign providers that they are foregoing further business.

"Venezuela, in other words, is now so broke that it may not have enough money to pay for its money."

In the midst of this galloping cataclysm, there is no shortage of pundits who simplistically assert that the catastrophe is caused solely by the international collapse of oil prices. However, according to Justin Fox at Bloomberg:

"The divergence between Venezuela's revenue and spending started long before (the 2014) oil-price collapse. When oil prices hit their all-time high in July 2008, government revenue -- 40 percent of which comes directly from oil -- was already falling. The main problem was Venezuelan oil production, which dropped from 3.3 million barrels a day in 2006 to 2.7 million in 2011. It was still at 2.7 million in 2014, according to the latest BP Statistical Review of World Energy."

"Venezuela isn't running out of oil. Its proven reserves have skyrocketed since 2000 as geologists have learned more about the heavy crude of the Orinoco Belt. But getting at that oil will take a lot of resources and expertise, both things that Venezuela's state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA, best known in the U.S. for its Citgo subsidiary), has been lacking in since Chavez initiated a sort of hostile takeover starting in the early 2000s. First he kicked out 18,000 workers and executives, 40 percent of the company's workforce, after a strike. Then he started demanding control of PDVSA's joint ventures with foreign oil companies. One could interpret this in the most Chavez-friendly way possible -- he was aiming for a more just allocation of his nation's resources -- and still conclude that he made it harder for PDVSA to deliver the necessary tax revenue."

Cronyism and corruption prevailed under Chavez when oil was selling at almost $200 a barrel -- at a time when Venezuela could have put some money away for the inevitable rainy day. But President Hugo Chavez and successor president Maduro, were busy buying votes and consolidating power with free giveaways, according to Michael Klare in The Nation.

Behind the doom and gloom Venezuela's collapse is the continuing specter of street crime and murder, according to Time.com in a May 2016 report:

"The country's runaway murder rate is just one of the factors driving opposition to President Nicolas Maduro in a country where shortages of food and basic goods are chronic, inflation is running rampant and the government is jailing political prisoners. But it serves as a bloody illustration of just how close to outright societal collapse Venezuela has come since the end of the 20th century, as gangs, guerrillas and militia defend their turfs and traditional authority structures fall by the wayside."

Venezuela's crime rate is one of the highest in the world. Called the world's most homicidal nation, Venezuela has more than street crime, thuggery and murder. Drug cartels, black marketeers, narcoterrorists, white collar criminals and money launderers are unfortunate hallmarks of the Chavez/Maduro legacy.

The ruin of this once prosperous, oil-rich nation might be a harbinger for other nations, such as the United States, which may be tempted into believing that Socialist giveaway policies actually can provide the promise of a free lunch for longer than the next election cycle. Or might that be all many politicians need or want?

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-1...ve-cannibalism

[American Patriot]

Sad.

I can't do anything for them.

They are "prisoners".

Only the government knows truthfully if they are bad guys or just guys labeled as "bad".

[Ryan Ruck]

Venezuela Seizes GM Plant As Crisis Escalates

April 20, 2017

Venezuela's seizure of a General Motors factory marks a step in the country's economic crisis that boosts risks to the remaining operations of other U.S. and multinational companies.

Amid turmoil punctuated by skyrocketing prices, unemployment, low oil prices and failed economic policies, the government seizure put an abrupt end to GM's operations -- a fate that other companies have faced.

"GM is not the first and they’re not going to be the last because the government of Venezuela is desperate for any assets they can take," said Peter Quinter, Miami-based chair of law firm GrayRobinson's Customs and International Trade Law Group. "It really is a vicious cycle they're in."

The Venezuelan government has previously seized assets belonging to U.S. companies, including those of cleaning products maker Clorox in 2014, glassmaker Owens-Illinois in 2010 and nationalized a rice mill operated by Cargill.

GM denounced the South American country's actions as an "illegal judicial seizure of its assets" and vowed a legal battle, but the company's protections are minimal in a country with a dubious commitment to the law.

Although other automakers, including Fiat Chrysler and Toyota, said their plants had not been touched, the Venezuelan government's assault on the world's third-largest automaker suggests the country is getting bolder as its economic circumstances deteriorate.

The move comes amid intense public protests in Venezuela against the government of President Nicolas Maduro. Three people were killed late Wednesday as tens of thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets to demand fresh presidential elections and the release of jailed opposition politicians.

General Motors Venezolana, GM's local subsidiary, was established in 1948 and employs about 2,700 workers and has 79 dealers in the country. The firm said it would make "separation payments" to affected workers.

GM representatives did not respond to questions about whether the company had contacted the Trump administration for help.

To be sure, the direct financial impact on GM is not likely to be large. Consequently, investors were not shaken by the plant's demise. GM shares rose 31 cents Thursday to close at $34.10.

"Any lost production is unlikely to prove material," Evercore ISI analyst Arndt Ellinghorst said in a note to investors, adding that the "day may have arrived" where the plant is unsalvageable.

As for other automakers, Ford had already shut down its Venezuela plant due to lack of demand but the company remains in possession of the facility, spokeswoman Kelli Felker said Thursday.

Toyota's "operations in Venezuela are currently operating normally," spokesman Scott Vazin said. "Our team members, dealers and customers remain our top priorities, and we are monitoring the situation closely."

Fiat Chrysler "is maintaining its production plans in Venezuela in support of efforts to rebuild the country’s automotive sector," the company, which makes the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Dodge Forza in the country, said in a statement.

GM said in a statement that vehicles and other assets had been taken from its facilities. The Detroit-based company did not provide details about how the seizure unfolded.

The automaker said it would "vigorously take all legal actions, within and outside of Venezuela, to defend its rights."

But its legal recourse against the Venezuelan government is likely limited, Quinter said.

"They can go to the courts here in the United States and try to seek action. But that really is not going to be effective unless the Venezuelan government has some assets here” that could be seized as compensation, Quinter said. "I don't see that happening."

Venezuela has high crime and inflation rates and there are shortages of many basic goods and services. It is oil-rich but cash-poor. Maduro has used his Socialist government's institutions to pursue political opponents.

Much of Venezuela's woe stems from the low price of oil, the export that has long fueled the economy. But the country's troubles also stem from government overspending, runaway inflation and corruption.

The country is engulfed by food shortages. People have turned their pets loose in the streets, unable to buy food for them. Companies have tried to cope. Coca-Cola said last year that it could no longer obtain the raw material to bottle the sugar-based version of its famous soft drink.

Relations with the U.S. have been tense in recent years, although Maduro's anti-American rhetoric has softened since President Trump took office. Venezuela's Information Ministry was not immediately available for comment Thursday.

"We are concerned that the government of Maduro is violating its own constitution and is not allowing the opposition to have their voices heard, nor allowing them to organize in a way that expresses the views of the Venezuelan people," U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters Wednesday, before the GM episode was publicized.

The troubled Venezuelan economy has dragged down the auto industry for several years, as tanking sales and abysmal currency exchange rates have undermined earnings.

GM said it was "confident that justice will eventually be served and looks forward to continue leading the Venezuelan market."

"In the meantime, GMV, through its dealers, will continue to provide aftermarket service and parts for its customers," the company said.

[Ryan Ruck]

[Ryan Ruck]

Venezuela's Maduro To Provide Guns To 400,000 Loyalists Amid Peaking Tension

April 18, 2017


The Bolivarian militias were first created by the late Hugo Chavez to assist the armed forces in the defense of his "revolution."

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said he will expand the number of civilians involved in armed militias, providing guns to as many as 400,000 loyalists.

The announcement came as Maduro's opponents are gearing up for what they pledge will be the largest rally yet to press for elections and a host of other demands Wednesday.

The Bolivarian militias, currently at approximately 100,000, were created by the late Hugo Chavez to assist the armed forces in the defense of his revolution from external and domestic attacks.

Speaking to thousands of militia members dressed in beige uniforms gathered in front of the presidential palace, Maduro said that vision remains relevant as Venezuela continues to face "imperialist aggression."

"A gun for every militiaman!" he cried.

Maduro's government claims foreign-backed opposition leaders are fomenting violence in an attempt to remove him from power. The opposition denies that assertion, saying it is Maduro himself who is responsible for Venezuela's woes, including triple-digit inflation, rising crime and food shortages.

They also blame Maduro for ordering security forces to use tear gas against protesters and failing to stop pro-government armed groups from attacking demonstrators.

During the act, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez read a text saying the country is living a “crucial situation.”

“The excessive ambition of [our] enemies threatens the peace and stability by carrying out a criminal agenda loaded with hate that includes terrorist acts, disturbances, looting, vandalism, different forms of violence against innocent people and public health facilities," Padrino said.

The defense chief said that the violent acts perpetrated during recent opposition protests, which to date have resulted in six deaths and about 100 arrests, are geared toward creating "anxiety in the public, anarchy and chaos, with the ignoble aim of toppling the democratic government."