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Socialism bad way to go

To the editor:

The ongoing chaotic, destructive collapse of Venezuela is, increasingly, taking on the appearance of the onset of the zombie apocalypse. Many on the left are beginning to make pleas for assistance for the helpless, hapless Venezuelans, victims of the corrupt and self-serving machinations of their government. They carefully avoid, however, that Venezuela’s situation is yet another instance of the failure of “democratic socialism.”

“Oh,” they say dismissively, “that’s not ‘real’ socialism.”

And, the left is absolutely correct — that isn’t socialism as Marx and Engels intended, and if you look in a textbook, a classroom study, Wikipedia or other resource, you’ll likely see that.

However, the recent events in Venezuela are a fairly typical, if catastrophic, example of what happens when socialist principles are applied, on a national scale.

Socialism, for various reasons — basic human nature being one — has never truly worked anywhere, at least, not like your college professors say.

Maybe it’s not “real” socialism/communism in academia’s enlightened, marble halls, but it was good enough for them for 70 years.

From the 1920s, the left, ignoring pesky details like endless shortages of basic goods and services, oppression, political imprisonment, yearly crop failures and genocidal purges and pogroms, touted the wonders of Soviet-style communism as the “wave of the future.” Then, in the 1980s that “wave” crashed against the rocks of Reaganism — in 1991 the USSR finally collapsed under the weight of their own vastly overextended, unsustainable economic policies.

After the American liberal left’s Soviet apologists emerged from their state of stunned, anguished disbelief and regrouped, pretending — unconvincingly — happiness about the fall of liberty’s enemy, we slowly started hearing how “that wasn’t ‘real’ socialism/communism,” anyway … and that’s been their story ever since.

We also started hearing how, in reality, it wasn’t Reagan’s policies, but Truman’s, which engineered the USSR’s demise.

There was no way that likeable old Republican was getting credit for humiliating their beloved Soviet communism.

Nobody mentions it much anymore, but I’ve read that Europe’s fragile socialism is sustained mainly by shuffling paper around and denial. The cradle-to-grave nanny states of Italy, Greece and Portugal, several years ago, seriously tapped the treasuries of the other states, who insisted upon cutbacks in services from these governments, so long as outside funds were necessary to remain afloat. This resulted in destructive riots, as the spoiled populace realized its gravy train was ending. It takes a lot of other people’s money to pay for everything for everyone.

Another example is Brazil, where socialist candidates, elected in 2002 and 2008, saw the collapse of the previously thriving Brazilian economy, and those candidates arrested for charges including corruption, bribe-taking, misuse of government funds and fraud.

Socialism brings misery, deprivation, want, oppression and even death, to the vast majority, while providing wealth and luxury to a very small, elite group at the very top. That’s what happens in the real world, everywhere, every time, it’s been applied — 100 million-plus corpses can’t be wrong.

Learn, people.

Rob Denham

Weirton

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