I have been saying that Bernie Sanders needs to look at what is going on in Venezuela as an object lesson in what the oligarchs in the USA will try to do to him when he becomes President. In Venezuela, the people against Maduro are the oligarchs of Venezuela. They are manufacturing undemocratic opposition to Maduro because their democratic opposition failed to unseat Maduro.

The USA has been fighting Chavez and Maduro in Venezuela for 20 years for two reasons. First and foremost our oil oligarchs want to take back control of Venezuela’s oil. Second, the USA has to prove that socialism is a failure as an economic system. The USA has done this in Cuba and Nicaragua, and now they are doing this in Venezuela.

As Bernie Sanders proudly declares that he is a Democratic Socialist, the USA oligarchs see Venezuela as the perfect political tool to prove that Socialism does not work. If they have to lay siege to Venezuela to make that point, they have no hesitation.

As I have been saying for quite a while, a true political leader changes what is politically possible. Bernie Sanders did a wonderful job of that with his 2016 campaign and subsequent initiatives. Venezuela is how the oligarchs fight back to close off the possibilities that Sanders has been working so hard to open up.

My previous post The Roles of Capitalism and Socialism in a Mixed Economy is all about how the oligarchs have been twisting economic theory for over 50 years to hide the fact that capitalism without socialism is how the oligarchs take control of all wealth and income.

How can Bernie Sanders not see any of this? Why would he ignore the chance to make an issue of what we have been doing to Venezuela for 20 years? When he talks about Venezuela, he never mentions what the USA has been doing to sink their experiment with Socialism. He wants to offer humanitarian aid to Venezuela without saying that lifting our siege on that country would be the greatest humanitarian aid we could possibly give. As with any ism like capitalism or socialism, you can do it right, or you can do it wrong. Bernie does not have to defend the way that Chavez and Maduro have done the job. All he has to do is defend their right to find out how to make socialism work in their country. Whether they succeed or fail in a fair test of their ideas, we can learn something. If their experiment is sabotaged by the USA, we will learn nothing except how to sabotage another country’s efforts to govern themselves. The USA has had plenty of practice doing that.

Here is the very disappointing response that I received.