The Death of Venezuela

 

Seemingly, things could not get any worse in Venezuela until they do. Maduro has taken the final steps and initiated himself as their dear leader. The Venezuela legislature, the National Assembly, being held by the pro-democracy opponents to Maduro, as the citizens, in a recent polling, were eighty-percent anti-Maduro are being sidelined as Maduro has taken steps using the Supreme Court which he appointed to bypass the will of the people and their elected legislature. Maduro simply gathered five-hundred-forty-five supporters to be the members of the Constituent Assembly with which he will present a new constitution for Venezuela making him its sole holder of power. So, things are not going to improve in Venezuela until they get worse and until Maduro will no longer be capable of bribing the military. Of course, that situation may not be as far off as Maduro hopes as the military recently was proudly handing out toothpaste, soap and toilet paper as rewards to grateful soldiers as such items are actually prized in today’s Venezuela. Imagine a military handing out toothpaste, soap and toilet paper and being proud enough that they distributed pictures of these “awards” (see below). Despite claims that the voters demanded he write this new Constitution, all observers counted a vote total cast at best at half of the votes Maduro claims his side received. That absolutely reeks of fraud, yet as he has the military, and thus all the guns, he will get away with this. Venezuela is the proof positive that in the United States it is the Second Amendment which keeps everything closer to legal, absolutely legal.

 

Official Venezuelan Military Awards Photograph

 

Official Venezuelan Military Awards Photograph

 

In the past, the military was accepting, or demanding, bribes from citizens to hand out paltry amounts of food, and the people accepted this as it was the only source for food. For now, Maduro has the support of his officers but should he falter in providing them with the comforts they are accustomed to, they are just as likely to turn on him and serve the people the current Constitution requires of them. One only has to wonder how far this can go with the soldiers being satisfied with the little tokens which they are being “lavished” with by their superiors. The military were very efficient the night of the big announcement about Maduro and his five-hundred-forty-five supporting members of the Constituent Assembly when they arrested the leadership of his opposing parties. Leopoldo Lopez, the outspoken leader of the Popular Will Party as well as the former mayor of Caracas, and Antonio Ledezma, supporter of the failed 2015 coup, were both dragged from their homes in the middle of the night claiming they had “violated the terms of their house arrest” by having contacts outside their homes criticizing the steps being taken by Maduro and his custom built slavish government. As Antonio Ledezma was being taken there are reports of a woman risking everything yelling out, “They’re taking Ledezma! Please neighbors! It’s a dictatorship!” Fox News reported last May about the arrest of at approximately sixty-five lower-ranking military officers by the regime charging some of them with “instigating rebellion.”

 

It will not be long before there will be a new Constitution which will probably dissolve the National Assembly and replace the elected legislature with the Maduro appointed Constituent Assembly. The new Constitution is likely to allow, or at least not forbid if not instruct, their to be a special military group which will operate as the regime’s secret police arresting opposition leaders in the middle of the night never to be seen again. Eventually they get to arresting even lower level pro-democracy people eventually overstepping their permitted authority, after all, we are talking about a nation in South America where once upon a time, not that long ago if memory serves, the people watched governments change with the calendar year. Eventually the people reach a point where, when all too many people know of a person who disappeared in the deep morning under the dark before the dawn. Eventually, there will be a new dawn which will come to Venezuela, as Maduro has another problem, he will never overcome, he is no Hugo Chavez.

 

Hugo Chavez could give speeches which left the people mesmerized and upon which they could feel that everything was going to be perfect if they just allowed him the time. Maduro is more of the bull than the matador. Where Hugo Chavez could dodge the rushing bull, Maduro is the charging bull. Every bull will eventually meet a matador which has his number and he ends up as just another trophy, a picture of the awful past. How long before Maduro meets his matador is impossible to know as the matador will be the man who can rally the people while remaining silently in the background thus beyond the reach of the secret police. This might not take as long as some will predict, as over three-quarters of the Venezuelan public are pro-democracy and desire to resist Maduro. They very likely are more than simply concerned about the direction of their governance and should, as suspected, the new Constitution dissolve the elected legislature the people might rise up and save Venezuela from Maduro and escape the socialist trap which holds their economy in meltdown. We will hope that the people of Venezuela will be saved and soon as they have been through far too long a period of being deprived of a decent life and any economic opportunity as the government has taken over more and more of the private sector and running these industries one-by-one into the ground forcing the next take-over. For now, Maduro will continue his running roughshod over the people of his nation.

 

Beyond the Cusp