It has become harder to go on Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo these days – my feeds are full of the most ghastly news about Venezuela. Good men forced to steal; not violent men but hungry and with families – burned alive for their troubles. Feral gangs hunting cats and dogs for meat. Food riots, prison riots – the wholesale destruction of the human soul. The apocalypse.
Above it all sit the new oligarchs, sweaty and fetid – desperate as they scurry around in a futile attempt to find the way to exist beyond the madness. Blame, anger, scheming – anything to not admit that they failed; that they should better run. That soon – sooner than they know – it will all catch up with them.
I know I write too much about Venezuela. How could I not? When you are the unwilling participant of something so bizarre – so horrible and twisted and vile that you are forced to just watch in horror. When it takes your breath away – the evil does – and you have to sit down. When it overcomes you; and you are powerless to act – all you can do is watch – and in my case write.
So here I go again.
This piece I am dedicating to you. And you know who you are. Let me digress. It’s been more than a decade now that I started working on, oh let’s call it “21st Century Socialism”. Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua – the Bolivarian Alliance (ALBA). All of it, the entire nasty, smelly, stupid mess. “Working on” in my context means trying actively to foil – to slow down – to interrupt: to stop. To explain to those who should know better why they were willing, enthusiastic participants in their own destruction. Why it would all end in gasoline bonfires of human flesh beside a bread line. I did this through many ways – none of which I will go into here but all of which involved the attempts to awaken people’s minds; to reintroduce them to the world of flesh and blood where ideas matter, where actions have consequences and decisions are existential, especially for those in poverty. I worked on the street – in policy environments – in think tanks. Hell, I even wrote two fiction novels (in English and Spanish) about the inevitable outcomes of this nightmare. Of course I wasn’t alone. I accompanied great men and women, friends all who sacrificed so much – who continue to sacrifice for the cause of liberty.
And all the while you fought us; those of us trying to bring light to the darkness. You know who you are. You who marched against us. You who trolled our accounts, filling them with sewage. You who wrote articles making the case for the evil; who went on television to defend the idiocy; who attended events to hurl insults at the presenters; who offered excuses for the abuse and sought out scapegoats for the failure. You – the apologists of evil; the devils advocates. I have known many of you – because I have fought you too; though not through hate – which is your favorite tool. But through truth – though in your double speak you branded it as lies.
Now you are seeking to hide – most of you are. You know the end is near – and you are trying to find a way to pretend you had no part in the madness. That you saw it coming – that yours was the middle way that was missed; that it was not your fault. You should not hide –you should instead be ashamed, you should agonize, and you should apologize. Because it’s your fault too.
Joel D. Hirst's Blog 
Reblogged this on Conservative-Libertarian Fiction Alliance and commented:
An incisive follow-up to Joel Hirst’s haunting essay on Venezuela’s collapse. We would just remove the word “Too” from the title.
Can we still find tar and feathers?
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Fair enough. I put “too” because the real fault is the regime and their attempts to impose a defunct ideology and control other people. But its their apologists’ fault “too”.
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Fair enough. I put “too” because the fault is of the dictators and their attempts at societal control. But their apologists are to blame “too”.
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Is the end near ?
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Thanks for your solidarity with Venezuelan people. The crisis is very deep and dangerous. Please send a letter to the OAS and the UN. We did already without response. The Internatiobal organizations cannot stay silence at this crucial moment. There is no food, no medicines, no electricity, not even the way to call by land phones to other countries. This is bad, very bad. And we here are cannot do much until they declare the emergency. I called the State Deparyment asking for help, because my mother is an American citizen, and they cannot do anything. The US Embasdy there cannot either. The government already declared a war against the law, so it is a exceptional case, it is the beginning of a massacre. They are killing people with lack of anything that is essential in the hospitals.,The international community has to do something. Thanks again.
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I know the night feels darkest now. Hold on, don’t lose faith, you are not forgotten. there are still those who stand with those who yearn to be free; even if we are far away.
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This is a very bad situation. There needs a leader to step up and lead right now more than ever.
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Such a sad situation. How too stop them next time? Name names? Shouldn’t some of the fellow travelers be made an example of? Sad to watch, sad to think it will probably happen again and again.
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Thanks Joel, if Venezuela had more friends like you, instead of apologists of evil, things might have turned a little different and we would not be living this nightmare. Muchas gracias amigo, la Venezuela decente en deuda con valientes como tu.
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Gracias Romulo. Tambien estamos en deuda con los luchadores valientes que nos sirven de ejemplos en como enfrentar un mal tan grande sin ser destruidos. Ellos tambien los conozco – y tambien tienen nombres 🙂
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Pingback: It’s Your Fault Too, Venezuela’s Collapse — Joel D. Hirst’s Blog | Briscarlet
the impotence to change all this, the desperation, how many more protests, how many more signatures, how many more deaths, how much longer do Venezuelans will have to endure to change their terrible government?…time will only tell
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Yes, name the names. They are shameless, but maybe it will help someone.
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Pingback: A response to ‘The Suicide of Venezuela’; Or what happens when you find out a little bit about the author of something you read on the internet… | The Pochemuchka
I don’t know how I ended up here, yet I thought this
post was good. I do not know who you are but definitely you
are going to a well known blogger in case you aren’t already
Cheers!
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I’m not that much of a internet reader to be honest but your blogs are really nice, continue the good
work! I’ll proceed as well as bookmark your site to return in the future.
Best wishes
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