Counter- Bolivarian Revolution

The NYTimes insists there were "irregularities" in the Venezuelan election, but fails to document any. Using right-wing sources, they amplify the propaganda that the election "was stolen" but offer no proof. Instead we learn that "Steve Levitsky, an expert on democracy at Harvard University, called Sunday’s vote “one of the most egregious electoral frauds in modern Latin American history.” Just Steve the expert says so. BTW, Steve co-authored "How Democracies Die" which never mentions capitalism. Not content to obfuscate and dissemble about the current election, the piece goes into a whole revisionist history where Chavez goes from idealistic democrat to evil, authoritarian "populist" because, you know, socialism never works, no such thing as a free lunch, blah blah. Towards the end of the piece we get this: "Inflation was soaring, grocery stores were stripped bare and children were dying of malnutrition. Then the United States issued broad sanctions on the country’s oil industry, pushing the economy to the brink of collapse." It's true the US, as it has done in so many cases, and continues to do in Cuba, punished the population in order to force regime change. But that is only half the story. The U.S. funds the opposition and helps orchestrate their various coup attempts. Deeply committed to stamping out any vestige of socialism anywhere in the world, they will starve children if that's what it takes. This is the capitalist "democracy" Steve and the Times worship. The Bolivarian Revolution was too dependent on oil prices and failed to develop other sectors of the economy, especially food, when times were good. But during my visit in 2007 I witnessed the progress being made in consolidating a social base of those neglected by the oligarchs who had long ruled Venezuela with US support. The US wants access to that oil. It also wants private property and free market ideology to be the only alternative. update: today the US recognized Edmundo Gonzales as the winner. Why don't they just follow Israel's lead and murder Maduro?