COMMENTARY Coddling Maduro apologists on the left, like Petro, and get-tough hardliners on the right, like Rubio, loudly insist they have the solution to Venezuela's electoral fraud crisis. They don't.
A popular Venezuelan saying 鈥� m谩s bulla que cabuya 鈥� can refer to loud-mouthed thugs who are all noise and no noggin.
Like Nicol谩s Maduro.
The Venezuelan dictator says he鈥檚 鈥渂reaking relations鈥� with WhatsApp because it鈥檚 allowing folks to express too much criticism of the massive, brazen, knuckle-dragging election fraud he committed on July 28 鈥� when he declared himself the winner of a presidential contest the world now realizes he lost by millions of votes.
That's right, Maduro is severing diplomatic ties with the Republic of WhatsApp. It鈥檚 somewhere on the world map; just Google it, you鈥檒l find it. Anyway, Maduro has expelled its ambassador. So no more arepas for you, WhatsAppians! (Is that what you call people from WhatsApp?)
Ah, if only Maduro鈥檚 bulla was the only bulla we have to listen to now, as Venezuelans and the international community try to figure out how to dislodge one of the most disastrous and despotic Latin American leaders of this or any century 鈥� and as those who defy him and sent to prison camps.
Maduro鈥檚 opposition challenger, Edmundo Gonz谩lez, won two-thirds of the July 28 votes. But Venezuela鈥檚 mafioso socialist regime, including the military, is digging in to keep Maduro in power. And so this is when we start hearing the lefty-loosey and righty-tighty bulla about how to solve the Venezuelan crisis 鈥� neither of which actually does.
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Let鈥檚 start with the lefty-loosey bulla 鈥� the tiresome, Che Guevara T-shirt-wearing apologetics from the left exhorting the world to loosen pressure on Maduro right now because, well, as a socialist his heart is always in the right place and, besides, he wouldn鈥檛 have to act like a tyrant if the U.S. and other fascist forces hadn鈥檛 declared war on his country.
And who better represents the lefty-loosey dogma than Colombian President Gustavo Petro 鈥� the former leftist guerrilla who always checks his spine at the cloakroom when dealing with his ideological hermano next door.
Not only can Petro not bring himself to say publicly that Maduro鈥檚 victory claim is ludicrous; last week Colombia abstained from an Organization of American States vote on whether to demand Maduro publish the July 28 vote tally 鈥� which Maduro disgracefully refuses to do.
It鈥檚 as if Petro were a 20th-century cop telling a physically abused wife and her abuser husband to just work things out.
Instead, Petro blathers that we shouldn鈥檛 鈥渇all into the strategy of war and the separation of peoples鈥� and urges Maduro and Venezuela鈥檚 opposition to pursue a rapprochement 鈥� even if that means leaving a brutal and ruinous autocrat unchecked in the Miraflores presidential palace for at least another six years.
And, oh yeah, the imperialista U.S. should lift all sanctions against said autocrat.
Sanctions screws
I鈥檓 all for dialogue 鈥� if it leads to Maduro conceding a democratic election result. What insults me and every democrat on the planet is Petro鈥檚 suggestion that Maduro and the two-thirds of Venezuelans who want him gone should hug and patch things up now.
It鈥檚 as if Petro were a 20th-century policeman telling a physically abused wife and her abuser husband to just work things out.
Petro has company 鈥� most notably fellow Maduro-coddling leftist presidents Luiz In谩cio Lula da Silva in Brazil and Andr茅s Manuel L贸pez Obrador in Mexico.
But there's a legion of bulla counterparts on the righty-tighty side 鈥� like Republican Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who鈥檚 leading conservative cries to have the Biden Administration re-tighten the economic sanctions screws on Venezuela to make Maduro cry uncle.
Rubio asserts this crisis never would have happened under former right-wing President Donald Trump and the oil sales embargo he slapped on Venezuela.
That's right 鈥� because under Trump the Venezuelan opposition never even remotely approached the electoral corner it鈥檚 painted Maduro into now. And it has done so thanks largely to the electoral negotiations and agreements, which included an easing of oil sanctions, that Biden鈥檚 overseen.
Rubio鈥檚 right to condemn Maduro鈥檚 criminal betrayal of vote-respecting pacts like last fall's Barbados accord. But the Senator himself looks like a retro cop 鈥� telling us to punish the abusive father by heaping more suffering on his kids.
That's essentially what re-applying the full Trump penalties package, rather than focusing on targeted sanctions, would mean at this point for already desperate 鈥� and emigrating 鈥� Venezuelans.
So please, all the lefty-loosey and righty-tighty Venezuela zealots, spare us your bulla 鈥� and try using your noggins now.
