 So, socialists all around the world, leftists all around the world, during the heyday of Chavez in the mid-2000s, all the way through the early part of the teens, I guess, the 20 teens, praise Chavez to the Hilt. They loved this guy. He was doing what socialists do. We'll talk about exactly what he did, the details of what he did in a minute. That he was acting like a real socialist, huge redistribution of wealth, massive nationalizations, what real socialists do. Confiscation of private wealth, socialism. And at the same time, he, you know, I don't know if you know, but Venezuela, I guess, Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world. They had a thriving oil industry. And during this time, Venezuela was living off of oil revenue. Oil peaked at 147, I think, during this period. And 147 dollars a barrel, and money was just flowing in. And that money was being spent like crazy in redistributive schemes. Venezuela was supporting Cuba with lots of dollars because they felt so rich. And of course during this period, when everything was being nationalized and oil revenue were coming in like crazy, people said, look, socialism works, what are you complaining about? Look, Venezuela's rich. Not anybody who knew anything about economics, about incentives, about philosophy, about how people behave under different circumstances, knew that this was short lived, knew that this could not survive. But the left, the left continued to praise it to the Hilt, to the Hilt, because it looked like it was working. It appeared like it was working. Mark says on Facebook that in 2007, Nomi Klein, Nomi Klein, a huge, huge fan of Chavez's wrote that under Chavez's government as a country where, quote, citizens had renewed their faith in the power of democracy to improve their lives. And she goes on and on in her book to praise Chavez and to show how wonderful his regime was and how good it was for Venezuela's. And what a wonderful example it was for the world. This was an example of how to implement socialism in the 21st century. Of course, as the Chavez revolution ultimately resulted in more authoritarianism, some people backed out a little bit. Some on the left backed off. But it really happened when the shortages started, when the hunger started, when the babies started dying, when the food was not available, when people were out in the streets, when death squads were killing people, then some people on the left started saying, oh, no, no, no. Venezuela is a failed state. That's a failed, but it's not. It's not they tell us socialism. It's quite contrary. It's capitalism. It's all those businessmen left in Venezuela. Chavez didn't do a good enough job in nationalizing industry, or it's a crony capitalism, contradiction in terms. It's not such thing as crony capitalism. cronyism is a feature of statism, not of capitalism. It's a kleptocracy. There are crooks. It's fascism, we were told, as if there's a big difference. As if there's a big difference between fascism and socialism. But it's not socialism. It's not socialism, we were told. And today are being told. There was a there was a Washington Post op-ed six months ago. It's not socialism. What's happening in Venezuela? It's not socialism. And if you ask Bernie Sanders, if you asked any of these guys, no, no, no, no, no. And and Chavez might have been a good guy, but it's all Maduro's fault. The fact that we all predicted this. The fact that Chavez managed to take a country that was the richest country in Venezuela in Latin America on a per capita basis before Chavez. Venezuela was the richest country in Latin America. You know, I'm not saying it was a great country because it wasn't. It had a lot of poverty. In those days it was much more like a crony country. People with connections were rich. People without connections were poor. And there was a lot of poverty. But on average, it was a wealthy country. Caracas was an amazing city. People loved going to visit. And both Chavez and Maduro. But Chavez alone turned that country into the poorest country in Latin America and just on a GDP per capita basis. Hollywood supported this guy. Hollywood loved Chavez. Again, an example. He was charismatic. I don't see the charisma, but he was charismatic. He was a powerful speaker. So was Hitler. And he rallied the poor and he spoke about poverty and he spoke about, this shouldn't surprise you. But he spoke about morality. What is moral? What is right? What is just? He spoke about social justice. Social justice. And they all loved him because that's their language. Helping the poor to help with the capitalist, to help with the industrialist, to help with private property. So all the leftists, the entire leftist kind of infrastructure in this country. Loved Chavez from Namchomsky to Sean Penn, to Boney Sanders, to the Hollywood Left, to the university professors and exam.