They need oil revenue in order to keep the masses in line, but low oil prices are keeping that from happening. Their fallback position to avoid an uprising is to attack the US (almost always hinting that the unrest itself is really the result of US prodding toward revolt). National pride then acts to hold people together until the crisis passes.

Heck... it wasn't that long ago that their dictator was claiming that the US had given him cancer.

To paraphrase Joseph Goebbels, "Everything is to blame on the US."

(Original phrase: "Everything is the fault of the Jews.&quot

But keep dropping turds like you just did if it makes you feel better.

Or Cuba's.

Or the old Soviet Union.

This isn't the last century. Venezuela isn't part of the Soviet bloc. Get over it.

A banana republic has an oligarchy that controls the primary-sector productions to exploit the country's economy.
Chavez took away the exploitation of oil FROM the oligarchs.
What is your game?... to keep insisting on "dictator" when Maduro
was elected. You sound right-wing-- and its the left that you despise.

Marcos Perez Jiminez has been dead for a long, long time.

Both Chavez and Maduro have claimed that Chavez's cancer was a result of US imperialists poisoning him.

All Venezuela-based news outlets are talking about it.

for killing and torturing many thousands of innocent people

Maduro.

Rule by decree.

I mean, it works so well in Maduro's buddy's country, Zimbabwe, right?

Don't forget the paramilitary goons on motorcycles.
Oh I forgot! "They don't exist, 'cause we say so!"

Disingenuous hit piece as usual.
Also, they have cleaner elections there.

How does someone with two weeks of DU experience know what is "usual"?

However his "Something that can't be denied" demanded response.
MSM (corporate media) always writes hit pieces on Venezuela.
It seems that their propaganda is working even here.
Sad to see so may duped into fighting for the oligarchs.

Brianna Lee
March 25 2015 2:46 PM EDT


Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has seen an uptick in his popularity in the weeks since he began lobbing fierce rhetoric against the United States over sanctions and accusations of a Washington, D.C.-backed coup. But his latest approval ratings, at just 25 percent, still aren’t very favorable.

Independent Venezuelan polling firm Datanalisis released the results of its latest survey Tuesday, showing that the president’s approval rating inched up by a few percentage points in March, up from 23 percent recorded in January.

Analysts had speculated that Maduro could benefit from President Obama’s executive order earlier this month that issued sanctions on seven Venezuelan officials. Maduro’s approval ratings had been in the lower-20-percentage range for months in the wake of Venezuela’s slumping economy, manifested in the form of soaring inflation and goods shortages that have exacerbated congestion in grocery store lines. Since he assumed the presidency in 2013, his overall approval rating has plummeted by 32 percentage points, according to Datanalisis figures.

Although Washington’s sanctions only targeted seven individuals, they offered Maduro an opportunity to steer the conversation away from the sputtering economy to rally his support base against fears of U.S. aggression. “The recent measures by the United States give the Venezuelan government the chance to reorient the internal debate,” Datanalisis director Luis Vicente Leon wrote in Venezuela's El Universal newspaper last week. But while Maduro's tactics might have bumped up his popularity a little, they don't seem to be changing the game for the embattled leader.

http://www.ibtimes.com/venezuelan-president-nicolas-maduros-approval-rating-gets-tiny-bump-amid-tensions-us-1859116