You did seem to have taken my post about the Venezuelan electricity supply to be a post about how America had sabotaged Venezuela and how Stalinism was a wonderful thing.
fasquardon
Your post was about "The truth is that Chavez actually did a pretty good job with regards to domestic policy in Venezuela. It is hard to improve on his performance," which is absolute nonsense.
Even when compared to similar corrupt thugs of energy based states, he is the worst. There hasn't been any similar kind of collapse and shortages in Putin's Russia (even with sanctions on it, and him spending money on wars in Ukraine and Syria) or Morales's Bolivia despite their dependence of energy revenue like Venezuela. If you compare to Latin America in general, again no such disaster regardless if the country is Peru, Colombia, or Brazil. Brazil has economic difficulties right now, but nothing like Venezuela.
And you brought up America when you said:
A more cautious foreign policy with less resources spent boosting regional allies might free up resources for more internal investment, but given the hostility of the US (which began even before Chavez took office) the "Bolivarian" foreign policy was actually quite rational.
Sounds like to me you are trying to place some of that blame on America. "Of course if Chavez didn't spend $18 billion on behalf of Cuba, that money could've been spent on Venezuelans. But he had no choice because... America!"
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
A drought impacting hydroelectric power doesn't explain why Venezuela has run out of toilet paper. It doesn't explain why food, consumer staples, and basic medicine has disappeared. It doesn't explain why PDVSA went from one of the best managed national oil companies in the world into a bankrupt, incompetent company managed by Chavista cronies with plunging oil production. It doesn't explain why Hugo Chavez's daughter is worth $4.2 billion. It doesn't explain an inflation rate expected to hit 720%. It doesn't explain how Venezuela's currency has lost 93% of its value in two years.
That's because the drought is not the root cause of these problems. It is a relatively minor contributing factor. The root cause is Chavismo. It is about placing cronies in charge of the national bank and oil companies. It is about expropriating private businesses. It is about spending way too much money. It is about the destruction of the rule of law and the corruption of the court system.
Yet all of this seems to have escaped you. You don't see how any of this can be traced back to Hugo Chavez - whose performance could not have possibly been improved. Instead, it must be the weather.
You sound like the same people who blamed all the problems of the Five Year Plan at anything else other than Stalin and the Soviet system. Nope, it's not because this kind of socialism doesn't work - it has to be somebody's else's fault. Hence my sarcasm.
As for the OP - simple, get rid of Chavez. It's that simple. You'll still have some level of corruption and bad governance, but Venezuela will avoid the distinction of being the next Zimbabwe, and they'll have at least something to show for all those years of high oil prices.