Som kjent er Venezuela rammet av en økonomisk katastrofe – med fattigdom, kolossal inflasjon, enorm arbeidsløshet, tomme butikkhyller, flyktningstrøm. Dette skyldes ene og alene den sosialistiske politikken landet har ført under Chavez og Maduro. (Vi har kommentert dette tidligere her på Gullstandard og vi vil henvise de som er interessert i å lese mer til disse tidligere artiklene; linker er gitt nedenfor). Hvorfor fører sosialisme til fattigdom? Sosialismen er essensielt sett et system som tar fra de som jobber og gir til de som ikke jobber, dvs. dette systemet straffer de som produserer velstand, og belønner de som bare forbruker. Naturlig nok fører dette til at produksjonen stopper opp, og siden det er produksjon som – bokstavelig talt! – gir velstand, så forsvinner velstanden. Jo mer utbredt sosialismen er i et samfunn, jo mindre blir velstanden i dette samfunnet. La oss også ha nevnt at ingen journalister eller kommentatorer i MSM ser denne koblingen, og derfor – dersom vi skal dømme ut i fra det som man kan lese i MSM – er det ikke mulig å se noen forklaring på de krisene som sosialismen alltid fører til hvis man kun orienterer seg via MSM.
Men det virker som om sosialismen har en tiltrekningskraft på mange mennesker, selv om den i praksis alltid fører til fattigdom og sult. Også Nicaragua forsøker nå en sosialistisk politikk. Og hvordan går det?
Den sterkt venstreorienterte Daniel Ortega var president i Nicaragua fra 1985 til 1990; gruppen han ledet før han ble president var Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, FSLN, den sandinistiske frigjøringsfronten, Ortega klarte å komme tilbake til makten for ca ti år siden. Den politikken han har ført gir akkurat de resultater alle unntatt akademikere, journalister, fagforeningsfolk, folk i NGOer, etc., kunne forvente. En lang artikkel i The New Yorker forteller om bakgrunnen og dagens situasjon:
«The strife in Nicaragua began in April, after President Daniel Ortega announced cuts to social-security benefits, along with increases in worker contributions. [Dvs. skattene ble økt og offentlige tilbud ble redusert.] Tensions had been building for years, over Ortega’s tenacious hold on power, his occasionally arbitrary decrees, and a widespread sense that his family and a few cronies had enriched themselves at the country’s expense. Nicaragua is among the Western Hemisphere’s poorest countries, and the prospect of greater privation inspired outrage. Students joined elderly pensioners on the streets to protest, and Ortega’s police opened fire. Within a few days, twenty-six people had been killed. As the lines of confrontation hardened, young partisans across the country blocked streets with barricades of paving stones to hold back government forces.» …
«For eleven years, Ortega had sustained his power through shrewd dealmaking and accommodation. Although he began his career, four decades ago, as a Marxist revolutionary, he has aligned himself with business leaders and cultivated the Catholic Church by imposing a total ban on abortion. He still fulminates about Yankee imperialism, but he has courted the International Monetary Fund and allowed a wave of American retirees to settle in Nicaragua, to take advantage of the good beaches and the cheap real estate. In recent months, though, as Ortega has tried to regain control, he has adopted a strategy employed by autocrats in Turkey, Egypt, Venezuela, and elsewhere: condemn your political opponents as traitors, incite mobs to violence, and then deny responsibility. Across the country, hundreds of protesters have been killed, and many more put in prison.» …
«In 2006, Ortega found a way back to the Presidency, by combining support from the left and the right. He had struck deals with old conservative enemies, including the Catholic cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo and members of the country’s powerful private sector. Though he still called himself a Sandinista, he now claimed to have been born again as a Catholic; the official motto of his government is ‘Christian, Socialist, and Caring.’ Once he was in office, his deals paid off. Chávez began sending subsidized petroleum, reportedly worth half a billion dollars a year; Ortega created a company called Albanisa to manage the proceeds, which he used as a personal source of patronage funds.»
Han kombinere altså kristendom og sosialisme med statlig omsorg! Vi skulle gjerne hatt et norsk uttrykk som beskriver hvor passende og perfekt denne koblingen er, men vi får nøye oss med det engelske «a match made in heaven». Og hvordan fungerer denne koblingen her på jorden, i virkelighetens verden? Vi gjenga innledningsvis noe om dette, men her er litt mer:
«During the recent violence, the business class and the Catholic clergy abandoned Ortega. ‘Civil society isn’t with him, either,’ Ramírez told me. He showed me a video that was circulating online, in which a leading Sandinista congressman was heckled out of a Managua supermarket by shoppers shouting ‘Murderer!’ Ortega and his loyalists had become pariahs, Ramírez said: ‘They can no longer live with the rest of us, within society.’…».
«Ortega retains support from the police and other government employees, who depend on his good will for an income, and he is also popular among working-class people who still believe in the inclusive revolutionary message. But the bloodshed has forced a reckoning; the civic opposition includes many former Sandinistas whose children were among those killed. ‘He has attacked his own base,’ Ramírez said. ‘It will be extremely difficult for the pendulum to swing back his way.’ The Sandinista experiment had ended a long time ago, he added. All that remained was Ortega, and his desire for power. ‘The revolution was always more about idealism than it was about ideology,’ he said. ‘But with Daniel Ortega what ideals are there?’ Ramírez paused. ‘This is a killing machine, and we are all oiling it.’»
Så gammelsosialisten Ortega, nå gjenfødt som kristen, er opptatt av makt, mister støtte fra folket når den sosialistiske politikken fører til ufrihet og fattigdom, og bruker vold mot demonstranter for å beholde makten. Big surprise!
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/09/03/fake-news-and-unrest-in-nicaragua
https://www.gullstandard.no/2018/08/06/oppskrift-pa-en-katastrofe-sosialistiske-venezuela/
https://www.gullstandard.no/2018/04/03/venezuela-enda-et-eksempel-pa-sosialismens-sanne-ansikt/