Things are moving scarily fast in Venezuela.

1988: Ron Paul , a memmber of Congress at the time, accused the United States government of 

trafficking crack cocaine into the United States. 

  

Mena, Arkansas  was a drug smuggling hub under Governor Bill Clinton. 

http://redeyetaxi.blogspot.com/2015/11/chomsky-is-bit-disingenuous-when-he.html?m=

Noam Chomsky has jumped ship on Venezuela.

This is a television spot produced for the ongoing legislative election campaign.  Youthful Chavistas tell whoever needs to know that they are an organized battalion and that the Chavista movement is going to triumph "como sea", or "by any means necessary. "

 In order to hold on to a majority of the National Assembly the Chavista coalition needs to win 45% of the vote. Just as in the United States the electoral system gives more weight to rural votes than to urban votes. Ironically the system gives more weight to legislative election votes to citizens in pro Chavista strongholds while in the United States the system gives more weight to rural predominantly white states and districts,  favoring the Republicans. This is why New Hampshire has the same two United States Senatos  as does California with millions of more citizens than New Hampshire. More Americans voted for Democratic Congressional candidates yet the Republicans dominate Congress.

 Surely the United States government and media see the hypocrisy of criticizing the Venezuelan government and system. But I want to go further here.- Chavism was evolved through efforts to improve the lives of the poor and to open up political activity and effectiveness to the disenfranchised majority. In the United States it's widely acknowledged that 99 % of the people have no effective input on policies that affect them. Chavism also was about Venezuela and other underdeveloped resource exporting countries taking charge of their resources and getting the best possible prices for them. It's certainly produced a mixed scorecard . It's undoubtable that the United States mobilized considerable resources to end dependency on imported oil and that among the goals was the important campaign to weaken Russia,  Venezuela,  and Iran, and to collapse their economies.  President Maduro can be critcized for a lot of things but he's not lying when he points to economic warfare. Knowing all this does one willingly put the future of one's country, its sovereignty and future up to a vote? More likely one would fight like a wildcat win, lose or draw on the vote, for right against wrong.

Aporrea is a  pro Socialist Venezuelan website that critcizes but also supports the Chavista government. It broke the story (in Venezuela) about the two nephews of the President of Venezuela who were arrested last Tuesday for allegedly trying to smuggle 800 kilos of cocaine into the United States. That Aporrea carried the story straight from US sources  in itself is news.

I have said here that if it were up to me not one more Latin American cop, soldier, prosecutor,  judge, journalist  or innocent bystander would die for the United States' phony drug war. Recently there has been an increasing crescendo of accusations in the USA that the Chavista government has turned Venezuela into a "Narco State", an international drug smuggling hub. My first reaction is "pot, kettle,  black. " I do not know if President Maduro's nephews are guilty or are being framed. Either has some credibility. If they're guilty, then they can be blamed for trying to make money by sending cocaine, a harmful and illegal drug to the population that risks jail and worse to get their hands on it- the drug consuming American people. They also would be guilty of opening Venezuela up for attack on Venezuela by providing a pretext, as phony and hypocriticalas it be.

To bring you up to speed, two nephews of Celia Flores, activist wife of Venezuela's president were arrested in Haiti while allegedly trying to smuggle 800 kilos of cocaine into the United States. For several days in Venezuela either the story has been completely ignored by most media, or the've left out information about the suspects, one of whom was a stepson of the first family and both Of whom were allegedly carrying diplomatic passports at the time of their arrests.

Venezuela is facing a crucial legislative election on December 6. Most public opinion surveys indicate an opposition lead of 10% to 20%. The opposition is not popular in its own right but neither is President Maduro . Any  objective observer knows that the Maduro government has been unable to maintain the material gains that the poor received under the late President Hugo Chavez.  Maduro has a point when he says that the United States and the Venezuelan oligarchy have waged economic warfare against his government.  

The Venezuelan government is suing the United States based publishers of Dolar Today in a United States court. Dolar Today not only propagates the black market dollar in Venezuela,  it carries very sharp attacks on the government. Since the publishers at least implicitly encourag Venezuelans to break Venezuela's laws shouldn't they be charged under the Corrupt Foreign Practices Act or the anti Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization statutes?

We're I Venezuelan I'd vote for the Patriotic Pole,  the pro government electoral coalition.it's within this movement that true patriots and socialists are located. It's from these forces that leadership out of Venezuela's miasma of economic depression coupled with inflation and shortages will come and hopefully are emerging now.