Dear Steven,

Thanks so much for reaching out, and for your important question regarding Bernie’s stance on the complex and evolving situation in Venezuela. We apologize for the delay; we’ve been working around the clock to respond to the thousands of emails we receive each day.

Sen. Sanders has called for internationally supervised free elections in order to allow the people of Venezuela to democratically elect their leaders. His position is that President Maduro must refrain from any violence against protestors, and humanitarian aid should be allowed into Venezuela via international organizations like the UN or ICRC. Senator Sanders’ office released the following official statement regarding the ongoing crisis in Venezuela:

“The Maduro government in Venezuela has been waging a violent crackdown on Venezuelan civil society, violated the constitution by dissolving the National Assembly and was re-elected last year in an election that many observers said was fraudulent. Further, the economy is a disaster and millions are migrating. The United States should support the rule of law, fair elections and self-determination for the Venezuelan people. We must condemn the use of violence against unarmed protesters and the suppression of dissent. However, we must learn the lessons of the past and not be in the business of regime change or supporting coups – as we have in Chile, Guatemala, Brazil and the Dominican Republic. The United States has a long history of inappropriately intervening in Latin American countries; we must not go down that road again.”

As a larger issue, Sen. Sanders opposes the U.S. pursuit of regime change, the unintended consequences of which have created turmoil throughout the world. Again, we are sorry for the delay in responding to you.

In solidarity,

Team Bernie

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.

/Steve

P.S. This comes from my blog.
https://ssgreenberg.name/PoliticsBlog/2019/02/27/bernie-sanders-works-to-defeat-himself/