That is an excellent example of our leaders views on Human Rights.

I wouldn't expect a new administration in Venezuela to act like the current one with their repression and uses of paramilitaires. Just like Obama isn't continuing Bush's policies.

Just because we don't take pictures anymore, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
Not only did Obama continue many of bu$h's policies, he also did NOT do a proper house cleaning as most other Presidents have done. And worse, he has appointed many Republicans to his Cabinet.

I believe the Cons he appointed were LaHood and Gates. Gates is now gone. Obama is also winding down the two wars that Bush caused. I don't see Pres. Obama continuing Bush policies, rather trying to escapte them. But I tend to support Democrats. Democrats in the US that is. You seem to believe Maduro and Venezuela are a better example of government. Not me.

DLC, 3rd Way, New Democrats and a few more, are all way to the Right of the Republicans of a few decades ago. Just because they have a (D) by their name, does not necessarily make them Democrats. I remember a couple of his past top advisers. One of them is currently screwing up Chicago big time now. Obama is a corporatist, beholden to Wall Street and the big banks.
Our own current Human Rights around the world is nothing to brag about either.

its a failed state so I don't see how anyone would want to follow that model. No governments in Latin America are following that example thats for sure.

Oh yes, we are.

Now that's a convincing argument. Obviously it's due to our meddling that Chavez and now Maduro have pissed away Venezuela's patrimony - oil to the extent that it now has to get loans at usurious rates. We meddled so that Chavez and company let the once proud and exemplary (for all of Latin America) national petroleum company PDVSA become loaded with hacks and political cronies and let its equipment deteriorate to the point that it can't exploit new deposits. US meddling made the Chavez-Maduro economic geniuses go for an economic plan that defies the basics of supply and demand, creating shortages in basic goods which would have been unthinkable in Venezuela even a few years before. And it's the US meddling that the Venezuelan currency is approaching junk bond status, because Venezuela is staggering under a huge crime rate and because the national electric grid is almost collapsing due to years of mismanagement and lack of investment. Boy, are we ever powerful.

And not necessarily trying to correct it either.

of how we are today meddling in Venezuela.

Now it goes into the pockets of the country and is redistributed to poor citizens not to the oligarchy which is what these anti-Maduro protesters are really fighting against.

PDVSA was only an example of how the oligarchy takes national resources and exploits them for only their own benefit, just like BP does to the US's southern coastline.

The shortages and bond problems are due to these same elites putting the squeeze on Venezuela to force them to go back to capitalism and the rule of oligarchs. Bankers not getting bailed out when they screw us all is something capitalism can't abide.

The electric grid and infrastructure throughout Venezuela was crumbling much like the US's long before Chavez or Maduro. Constant Austerity policies pushed by the capitalist oligarchy ensured no funds were spent on the power grid and other infrastructure for decades and decades. You expect socialism to fix all of the mess left behind by greedy capitalist created over centuries in a decade.

In the last few years there have been a few blackouts which have left around half the country without power. But since you actually don't pay attention to news sites based in Venezuela or don't have friends and family that live there, you obviously don't know about it.

it is fact free. If you actually knew anything about PDVSA you would know that it was viewed as a model in all of Latin America for being so efficiently run. Seeing as it's a governmental agency it's hard to make the argument that it gave its funds to the 'oligarchy' (unless you define, as many today do, the 'oligarchy' as being part of Chavez's political cronyism).

Likewise the shortages. The moment a government puts price controls and freezes in place which require the business owner to sell for less than the cost at which he acquires the goods, you start getting shortages. VZ bonds are almost junk because the present government pissed away millions of petrodollars. Not the capitalists.

The electric grid (a subject with which I am very familiar) needed restructuring before Chavez and, in fact the national government had a modernization program already in place designed to correct this. They actually carried out the first in a series of privatizations of electric generation and distribution assets in Margarita Island, giving that state its first dependable electricity in its history. Chavez promptly nationalized it and never followed through with any modernization in the rest of the country. Now, sixteen or seventeen years later the system is in tatters and no amount of talking out of both sides of his mouth will change that for Maduro. No, the 'oligarchs' didn't have anything to do with that problem, either.

The record is clear. Far from expecting "socialism to fix all of the mess left behind by greedy capitalist created over centuries in a decade" the Chavez-Maduro model has only been one of screwing up the things that functioned well and turning blind eye to the needs of the average Venezuelan, which is precisely why these same average people are now in the streets protesting. And they are not about to be put off by melodramatic talk about 'being exploited by the oligarchy and being victims of the anti=socialists"

thats been going on for 15 years. Remember Venezuela has for decades been one of the more advanced countries in the region.

Now lets easily refute your assertion of a failed state because of the US with another example. the US has been heavily involved in providing aid in Colombia. Colombia has rebounded tremendously over the past 12 years with that support. (I give Colombia alot more credit for its own advancement than I do US involvement), nevertheless US involvement has not hindered their development.

On the other hand, Venezuela is collapsing without US involvement at all. Its kind of painful to watch.


p.s. I am proudly situated exactly where the Democratic mascot is on that graph. It doesn't look like there is anywhere for you to go. You can go to Venezuela maybe since you seem to think leftist is supporting death squads, repression, brutality, lying, incompetence, restrictions on the press, arbitrary detentions, no functioning judicial system, corruption etcetera ad nauseum. Seems to me your graph should be a circle and you as a far leftist would meet your soul mates on the far right. Thats all you are but with a different colored shirt.

DLC, 3rd way, etc. Democrat? Or just another Republican masquerading as a Democrat? That would explain a lot.

You are the first to tell me that Donkey is in the Right place on that graph.

That is where the actual Progressives and Liberals are.

Socialist Michelle Bachelet, who was Chile's president from 2006 to 2010, cruised to victory in Sunday's presidential runoff.

Venezuela is NOT a failed state. At least NOT for the poor. But the uber rich and those who want the power to return to the rich elites are very upset.

And she does not personally insult and marginalize those who oppose her. Her government is of inclusion, Chavez's (and especially now Maduro's) is not inclusive at all. And their attempts to call for dialogue with the opposition would be only to negotiate a "peace" which would basically consist of submission under the regime's terms. There's at least half of the population which are against the government (probably more now since the government's done such a terrible job at running the economy), and the Chavista excuse of claiming that all their problems are caused by US/CIA meddling works only for so long, especially after 15 years in power, and even then it would only convince a handful of people, mostly conspiracy theory nutcases like Eva Golinger who spews garbage like Chávez's cancer being "inoculated" by the CIA. One only needs to take a look at the amount of people that attend Maduro's rallies in comparison to those called for by the opposition to see how little support the dim-witted successor has.

diverse growing market economy, one of the least corrupt governments in the region, functioning justice system, robust media, low crime, low inflation, practices diplomacy rather than conspiracy (even with Bolivia and Peru), and stocked with a good supply of toilet paper and other goods. Its just about everything Venezuela isn't.

to fund Venezuela opposition groups. So along with our tax dollars and Koch Brother funding, Venezuela's rich elite are well supplied to fake a few protests.

for your assertion. I bet you can't

But here's a couple of links to valid stories about it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-weisbrot/us-indicates-support-for_b_4808910.html

or

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/18/venezuela-protests-us-support-regime-change-mistake

"Of course we all know who the U.S. government supports in Venezuela. They don't really try to hide it: there's $5 million dollars in the 2014 U.S. federal budget for funding opposition activities inside Venezuela, and this is almost certainly the tip of the iceberg -- adding to the hundreds of millions of dollars of overt support over the past 15 years."

If you google Obama funds opposition groups in Venezuela, you get over 3 million hits. You do the research.

and at least two of the others who work for CEPR were employed by the Ven government. Hint: you can do a word search in PDF files. Let see you back up your claims.

It seems all that chavistas can do when someone accuses the Ven regime of doing poorly in terms of human rights is to compare it to the amount of such abuses that happen not even under the current US administration, but rather ones that happened in the past that people recognize were bad but have nothing to do with current US affairs, (which, btw, pale in comparison to the amount of examples we actually have evidence for so far from the current Venezuelan government's side). So apparently because someone does something bad and was not punished for it, then it's totally justified for me to do it as well. Brilliant

human rights. Until, it is just embarrassing as this is exactly how we are greeted each time we try to take the moral high ground on Human Rights.

What I find strange about the apparent amnesia regarding all the unresolved war crimes here, and all the victims many still trying, and being dismissed, to get some justice, is do they really not see how ineffective it is for the US to lecture anyone else on Human Rights?