A story about communism in Venezuela

Long, but I think it is important to share.

My neighbor owns a successful business here in Louisiana. He is from Venezuela and his wife is from Cuba. They have a wonderful family and have been bringing their relatives over via asylum or other means like work visas where possible. They are incredibly productive and hospitable people and embody what makes a great American family. In the 1950s Venezuela had the 4th highest GDP per capita in the world. As recently as the 80s or 90s it was still the wealthiest country in South America.

He worked for the Venezuelan state owned oil company (PDVSA) and it was considered a good job for someone from a modest family and without much education beyond high school. By 22 he was managing a small crew on a barge that was servicing oil drilling and production in Lake Maracaibo, a large reserve of oil.

A few years later in 2004 there was a referendum recall vote of the communist party president, Chavez. My neighbor voted to recall him as he "was convinced he was crooked and enriching himself". Not long after the election, with Chavez still in power, he was called to an office after his shift to meet with the equivalent of HR. He was told that he was no longer allowed to work there and to pack up his belongings and go home. Several of his close friends at PDVSA did not vote in the recall and were not fired. One was in the administrative office and confirmed that he was indeed fired for voting against Chavez and many other people were let go the same week for the same reason.

In the following weeks and months the vacant positions formerly held by those who voted to remove Chavez were filled with unqualified communist party members, many from Cuba. It was a policy from PDVSA at that time that it would provide you a home to live in while you were employed. If you worked for the company for 15 years, you would then own the home outright. During this anti-communist purge, many of the now vacant homes were filled with not only new oil company employees, but also now doctors and other professionals from Cuba, all of them communist party members. Your economic status was no longer relative to your productivity or good investment decisions but instead whether or not you were a good communist party member.

I dont know the exact statistics but GDP tanked, inflation soared and poverty boomed during this period and forward from there. My neighbor likes to describe how before he left you could not buy basic goods like diapers or baby formula. It simply did not exist on the shelves. People were rationed beans and rice. You could find some "American" items like electronics or food goods but could only buy them in the back room and with US dollars. After he was forced from PDVSA he made a living by sneaking across to Columbia and buying goods there to bring back home to resell for a profit. He started flying from Columbia to Miami and bringing back shoes and other items that were very rare and very valuable in Venezuela. As inflation climbed and life became more bleak, he decided to stay in America as he had an uncle working here who managed to find him a work visa at the same company.

He likes to illustrate how communism is bad by the fact that the Chavez government shut down International flights in order to prevent people from fleeing the country. In order to get out you would have to sneak into Columbia or even Brazil and fly from there. "The people no longer own themselves". Individuals are now owned by the country as slaves to the communist party.

My neighbor's wife says that as bad as it is in Venezuela, it is worse in Cuba: "If they hear you talk bad about the government on the phone, you disappear, never seen again"

The cannot wait to vote Trump tomorrow. They say that they cannot believe anyone in the USA can vote for a party so aligned with socialism or communism as the democrat party, especially when anyone can look to Venezuela to see how a wealthy country can fall into abject poverty all in the name of redistribution and equality of outcomes. "Ignorance" is their only explanation.

I agree with my neighbors that a vote for Biden is a step towards communism. Please join us in voting against communism by voting against Biden.